The University of Pittsburgh Partners for Rural Student Success Impact & Mobility (PRSSIM) Project, funded by the U.S. Department of Education's RPED Program, takes a three-point approach with the
- Office of the Provost Student Success Team,
- Office of Admissions and Financial Aid, and
- Pitt Digital
to improve student success and completion rates of rural students through the scaling of recruitment and retention efforts, student success resource availability, and bolstering of technical infrastructure, particularly to our Regional Campus partners.
- Project Objective 1: Increase rural students served
The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid at the Pittsburgh Campus is pursuing increased recruitment of rural students and increased collaboration with the Office of the Provost's Student Success Team to provide greater presence at college fairs, financial literacy workshops and resources, application completion workshops, and academic coaching interventions.
- Project Objective 2: Increase rural students enrolled
The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid at the Pittsburgh Campus is establishing increased recruitment of rural students with doubled efforts to recruit from areas of rural Pennsylvania. Further, the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid is pursuing increased enrollment of rural students and increased collaboration through regional campus admissions offices with foster cohesive recruitment efforts and hosting application and FAFSA completion workshops, leveraging cross-campus partnerships.
- Project Objective 3: Increase rural student first-year retention
The Office of the Provost's Student Success Team is building the necessary technical infrastructure alongside Pitt Digital to support student needs in navigating a large institution of higher education to prepare students to succeed beyond their first year at the University. The Student Success Team is building mentoring programs, degree exploration tools, and platforms to facilitate cross-campus collaboration to support the scaling of academic coaching, mentoring, tutoring, and academic advising and amplify ongoing efforts in this space at the University's regional campuses.
- Project Objective 4: Increase rural student degree completion
The Office of the Provost's Student Success Team is implementing strategic academic interventions in partnership with the regional campuses like academic coaching, tutoring connections, and cultural programming to enhance sense of success and belonging for rural students.
- Project Objective 5: Increase rural student internship attainment
The Office of the Provost's Student Success Team is intentionally partnering with career preparatory efforts at the regional campuses to amplify work already being accomplished to guide rural students to internship opportunities for experiential learning and supplement needs for students pursuing non-paid internships at the regional campuses.
The areas of rural and regional campus student support include recruitment and pre-college programming, career and major exploration, academic workshops and skill building, financial literacy, cultural events, tutoring, internships, mentoring, and academic coaching.
References and Collaborations
Visit PRSSIM Resources and Collaborations to find curated research and practices that promote access, belonging, academic success, and career readiness for rural learners across their college journey. The resource hub was developed to support faculty, staff, and campus partners seeking to better understand and respond to the needs of rural students in postsecondary settings.
Share Your Story
Are you doing work in this space, too? We'd love to hear your stories or opportunities to collaborate! Tell us your story.
Read what students had to say about their PRSSIM internship experiences.
