College Success Among Students From Disadvantaged Backgrounds: “Poor” and “Rural” Do Not Spell Failure

The popular view of students reared in poverty is that they fall short across a wide range of domains relative to their more advantaged peers. In this ongoing longitudinal study, we follow a cohort of college students who come from poverty and were awarded full financial support for four years at a large public research university. The results after two full academic years are striking for the lack of difference in dropout rate and grade point average between these economically disadvantaged students and their college peers. We suggest that it is not poverty per se that leads to poorer college academic performance in such students but rather the demand on their time and energy to meet ongoing financial needs.