Urban–rural background disparities and their impact on college students' academic outcomes

Background: In recent years, increasing attention has been devoted to the influence of urban-rural background disparities on students' educational outcomes. Focusing on undergraduate students with comparable performance on the National College Entrance Examination, this study examines whether urban-rural background disparities remain associated with academic outcomes in higher education in China. Methods: Using data from 632 valid questionnaire responses, we construct a mediation model incorporating family economic conditions, parental educational attainment, and self-directed learning ability to explore potential associational pathways linking urban-rural background to academic outcomes. Results: The results show that, on average, students from urban backgrounds achieve significantly better academic outcomes than their rural counterparts. Further analyses indicate that urban-rural background is systematically associated with differences in family economic conditions, parental educational attainment, and self-directed learning ability, which are in turn statistically associated with academic outcomes and together account for a substantial portion of the observed disparities. Conclusions: By embedding urban-rural background disparities into an analytical framework of college students' academic outcomes and jointly considering family-, individual-, and societal-level factors, this study extends the existing literature. Within the limits of a cross-sectional observational design, the findings clarify the associational structure linking family background, individual learning characteristics, and academic performance at the university level, and offer policy-relevant insights for improving learning conditions for rural students and promoting educational equity.