AMNA NAWAZ: Students in rural communities graduate from high school at a rate above the national average.

But when it comes to applying to college or getting their degrees, the same students' attendance and completion rates are well below their peers in urban and suburban areas.

Stephanie Sy reports from New Mexico on an initiative to help narrow the gap.

It is part of our series Rethinking College.

STEPHANIE SY: Questa is a remote majority-Hispanic village in northern New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Its high school has just 18 seniors, yet on a recent fall morning, a bus full of representatives from selective universities had arrived for a recruiting visit.

MATT YBARRA, ROCA New Mexico: Your identity, your community, your upbringing, your experience is actually a strength and an asset and not a disadvantage.

STEPHANIE SY: College Access Advocate Matt Ybarra explained to 11th and 12th graders why the colleges had come.

MATT YBARRA, Because many of them have kind of identified they weren't built for you, they weren't built for students from small communities in Northern New Mexico, but they're realizing that they're missing that voice on their campus.

STEPHANIE SY: Last year, less than half of Questa graduates enrolled in college.

Those that did went to in-state schools, according to counselor Brian Salazar.

BRIAN SALAZAR, Counselor, Questa High School: These kids haven't had the exposure that there's opportunity out there.

STEPHANIE SY: In rural New Mexico, just 20 percent of young adults complete college, compared to 32 percent in urban areas.

HANNA NEGISHI LEVIN, Davis New Mexico Scholarship: A lot of them don't know what colleges are out there and what colleges exist.

STEPHANIE SY: There are a lot of reasons for that statistic, says Hanna Negishi Levin.

HANNA NEGISHI LEVIN: They don't know how to pay for college.

They don't know even what the process of applying looks like.

STEPHANIE SY: And they may never have thought about going out of state.

Marjorie Betley is an admissions officer at the University of Chicago.

She herself grew up in a small town in Georgia and can relate.

MARJORIE BETLEY, University of Chicago: These students are not getting the same information that a lot of their peers are getting in more urban and suburban areas, because colleges don't come visit them.

They don't get opportunities to ask questions.

They don't get opportunities to learn about different scholarships that might be available to them.

STEPHANIE SY: Traveling for hours to schools where there may be only a few dozen students to meet with takes real commitment and nonprofit funding.

WOMAN: We really want to give you a chance to think about college research.

STEPHANIE SY: The admissions officers held workshops, prompting students to consider the varied aspects of college like campus social life.

WOMAN: Take a look at the question.

Think about what comes to mind.

STEPHANIE SY: There were sessions on paying for college.

MATT YBARRA: We want to give you some practice with this.

STEPHANIE SY: Where students tried running the numbers.

MATT YBARRA: You're going to look at a financial aid package at the bottom.

STEPHANIE SY: And a college fair where kids could collect information about visiting schools and speak with college representatives one-on-one.

JANAE DOMINGUEZ, Student: My mom is actually really excited for me to go to college, because she didn't go to college.

I would be the first gen to even go to college.

STEPHANIE SY: Questa junior Janae Dominguez was curious about the out-of-state visitors, but even though she's a top student: JANAE DOMINGUEZ: Whenever I think about college, I think about tuition.

So I think about in-state college.

BRIAN SALAZAR: What did you think of the college fair today?

STEPHANIE SY: Counselor Brian Salazar says finances weigh on the minds of many here.

BRIAN SALAZAR: My upperclassmen are coming to me, like: "I want to go to college, Mister, but I don't know.

My parents didn't go.

My parents don't have money.

I'm being raised by a single parent."

And the economic challenges are big here.

We are part of the free lunch program because all of our students are below the poverty limit.

STEPHANIE SY: Matt Ybarra told the group they could qualify for serious tuition discounts.

MATT YBARRA: We do have some schools in the room that are going to cost $90,000 a year.

And before you give up on that, for many of you in this room, that $90,000 a year college is going to cost you zero dollars to go there.

STEPHANIE SY: But for Dominguez, who was raised by a single mother, the thought of traveling out of state is daunting.

JANAE DOMINGUEZ: I feel like it would also be hard to leave New Mexico because I have never been far away from my family, just start a new chapter in your life and go away from everything that you have known.

STEPHANIE SY: What do you hope college will mean for your future?

JANAE DOMINGUEZ: I hope that I could provide more, not that my mom doesn't provide, but I just think I want to be able to provide for myself and future kids.

I want them to be able to not have to worry.

STEPHANIE SY: About 30 miles south of Questa, Taos High School was the next stop for the bus tour.

At the college fair that was set up in the school gym, junior Santiago DeHerrera visited every table.

SANTIAGO DEHERRERA, Student: I want to become a doctor, but I also want to gain experiences of independence and being away from home.

STEPHANIE SY: DeHerrera has ambitions to go out of state for college, even though it would be a big change.

SANTIAGO DEHERRERA: Being part of a small community, just when you go to a bigger college, you would definitely feel a culture shock.

STEPHANIE SY: Negishi Levin says that can be a barrier for other students here who are first-generation.

HANNA NEGISHI LEVIN: It's difficult to get here.

It's difficult to leave here.

Culturally, this is a very specific and singular state.

And leaving New Mexico for any first-gen student, any low-income student often means you're the first in your family to go and experience something that is new, where the community looks really different.

STEPHANIE SY: Still, teacher Gregory Rael encourages his students to keep an open mind.

GREGORY RAEL, Teacher: We have a lot of students who stayed within our community who -- where the college path may not have been the path for them.

And so we want to just build that next set of traditions for a lot of our students that a four-year university or a college degree is something to strive for and is something to value.

STEPHANIE SY: The mind-set aside, rural students often face academic hurdles to getting into elite schools.

Rural college completion rates are 15 percent lower than in urban areas.

New Mexico ranks last in education among all U.S. states and third to last in child economic well-being, and many rural districts, including Questa, operate on a four-day school week with strained budgets.

MARJORIE BETLEY: These students might not have access to AP classes or dual enrollment or honors classes, which at the end of the day might limit which schools they can even apply to, depending on admissions requirements from different schools.

STEPHANIE SY: Dominguez says Questa doesn't have as many advanced classes as other places.

JANAE DOMINGUEZ: They don't really offer that stuff, so I feel like it's not enough, if that makes sense.

STEPHANIE SY: So there are certain courses that you just don't -- they don't offer here, it's too small of a school?

JANAE DOMINGUEZ: Yes.

STEPHANIE SY: Columbia admissions officer Paige Cook says they do take into account what resources applicants have access to at their high school.

PAIGE COOK, Columbia University: Those types of contextual information make my job a lot easier at trying to uncover if that student is doing as much as they can.

STEPHANIE SY: You want to see that they're doing as much as they can within the confines of the curriculum offered at their school?

PAIGE COOK: Exactly.

MARJORIE BETLEY: Do you have any questions?

STEPHANIE SY: Betley from the University of Chicago says the schools that came here are committed to improving access.

These are pretty competitive colleges to get into.

MARJORIE BETLEY: Yes.

STEPHANIE SY: So, you already have a lot of students applying.

MARJORIE BETLEY: What we don't have is something that's representative of the United States as a whole.

That's for sure.

When we looked at our first analysis of our class, we found 3 percent of our entire campus where students coming from rural and small town high schools.

More than 30 percent of the United States is rural and small town.

So they were massively underrepresented.

STEPHANIE SY: Is that because rural students were not applying or because they weren't being admitted?

MARJORIE BETLEY: It was actually a little bit of both, but mostly that they weren't applying.

When we looked at our pool, our pipelines, they were fairly scarce.

STEPHANIE SY: Betley leads a network of colleges trying to expand those pipelines.

Her message to rural students: MARJORIE BETLEY: You are wanted.

You are welcomed.

We value you.

You bring a really important perspective that a lot of our campuses are missing, and we want to support you.

STEPHANIE SY: Betley has seen progress at her institution, where the share of rural students has increased to 9 percent.

The hope is that these bus tours lead to long-term relationships between rural high schools and top-tier colleges.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Stephanie Sy in Northern New Mexico.