USC joins college network looking to boost rural students’ access to higher education

COLUMBIA — The University of South Carolina is joining a coalition of colleges and universities looking to expand their recruiting and outreach efforts in rural schools. 

As one of 16 new members of the Small Town and Rural Student College Network, known as STARS, USC will get more funding for its work to reach prospective students and be able to better coordinate with the network’s other members to put on school events. 

It’s the latest step the university has taken to make itself more accessible for Palmetto State high schoolers, whose rural campuses are set to get more outreach from the network’s other 31 members, which range from Ivy League universities to state flagships and liberal arts colleges. 

“We’re trying our best to recruit these students to the University of South Carolina, that’s our primary goal,” Scott Verzyl, USC’s vice president for enrollment management, said. “But if we can increase the college-going rates for South Carolinians, no matter where they go to college, that’s a win for the university and the state of South Carolina.” 

Founded in 2023 with 16 members, the STARS network helps coordinate and fund its members’ outreach to rural and small town students, who are less likely than their urban and suburban counterparts to attend and stay enrolled in college. 

Admissions counselors from its member schools “caravan” together across rural areas, visiting schools to teach about the admissions process and hold information sessions for parents, according to Marjorie Betley, the network’s executive director.

Students on those campuses often lack as much exposure to information about higher education and can be overlooked by admissions counselors, because trips to small towns put them in front of fewer students than a trip to a big metropolitan area.   

In its inaugural year, the network boasted 1,100 visits to rural high schools in 49 different states.

“For many students, it just shows that we care,” Betley said. “We are not overlooking them, we are not flying over them just to get to the big city kids. We care, and we’re going to take the time and the effort to go reach them and give them the same information that their peers have, because they deserve that. 

South Carolina students can expect at least two of those group travel trips this school year, in the fall and spring. 

USC will get $200,000 from the network to help fund its prospective student outreach efforts, Verzyl said, which aim to visit every high school in the state each year. It doesn’t always hit that mark, but it’s usually close, to the tune of over 90 percent. 

Perhaps most importantly, that money will help fund the university’s efforts to transport high schoolers to campus, which allows them to better understand USC and college life — a “transformational activity” for some students, Betley said.  

Such visits can be particularly important for rural students, who might not be as familiar with higher education or have the same support systems at their schools or in their families for applying to college. 

Coupled with the university’s 2023 pledges to automatically admit all South Carolina students who graduate in the the top 10 percent their school, and pay the tuition of such students whose families make less than $80,000 a year, school leaders are hoping that the STARS network will help USC build a more diverse student body. 

“All of these kinds of things, access and affordability, we think are important to attracting students, particularly the students from more rural parts of the state,” Verzyl said.