Not many young people living in rural areas have access to a university education. Some say that universities should make attendance easier for people from rural areas. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?

As the enrollments of different higher institutions are increasing each year, more students coming from countrysides or rural areas are attending universities. However, some of them feel the education in the university is hard for them to comprehend regardless of the contents of courses or the assignments placed by instructors. Regarding this situation, people think higher education institutions should lower the standard or level of study so that rural students can access them easily. Admittedly, the education in higher institution sometimes really poses a tough situation on rural students. What they have learned or how they have processed the contents from school have to be changed once they get into universities. As a result of this, some of them are unable to adapt to the methods required to be used here. More frustratingly they might concern about dropping out if they could not continue their study. From this perspective, a higher institution should consider lowering the standard for rural students to keep the original pace of study. In addition, although universities are not the place where everyone can get involved in, in another word, once any pupils have been accepted by them, they are supposed to realise how tough the study would be, this really depends on the backgrounds of different pupils. Therefore, developing bridge programmes seems an efficient method for both rural students and schools themselves. Not only can pupils enhance their capacities for acquiring higher education, teachers can also fully learn about each individual student. This contributes to ease the burden on difficulties on students. However, to tackle this awkward circumstance means that schools are supposed to sacrifice to some extent. For instance, lowering standards for students from rural areas presents that the reputation that schools have obtained may be affected. More seriously, if this happened, the immediate impact on universities would be the loss of experienced teachers and funds raised by the local government. In conclusion, to alter the strategies for assisting rural students to access higher education is one of the most important implementations that universities should consider. However, schools have to address this issue discreetly or it would pose a threat to school’s reputation and their employment of staff. Establishing bridge programmes seems to be one of the feasible approaches for achieving the balance in the number of rural students in universities.