This author takes for granted that rural students are politically compatible with college campuses. They're not.
All the barriers to attending and graduating college are severely aggravated when the people you'll be around at college do not share and cannot relate to your life experiences or values and a significant fraction of whom will see you as a backwards hick.
I was also surprised that the article didn't address this very real issue. It started to talk about the "cultural" aspect, but it didn't mention politics except to note that rural areas were more pro-Trump than suburban areas. Bizarre that the author didn't put 2 and 2 together and consider that perhaps people who chose Trump over Clinton might not want to go to mostly-liberal ivory towers.
All the barriers to attending and graduating college are severely aggravated when the people you'll be around at college do not share and cannot relate to your life experiences or values and a significant fraction of whom will see you as a backwards hick.