The dramatic decline of rural industries (such as coal mining, millwork, or farming) over the last several decades coupled with most jobs requiring some sort of postsecondary education in today's U. S. economy means postsecondary credential attainment has taken on increased importance for rural social mobility. College accessibility appears to be spatially inequitable as rural 18-24-year-olds enroll in college at nearly half the rates of their urban counterparts. Despite this inequality, little scholarly attention has been paid to examining the diversity of rural communities and how place-based factors impact college opportunities and enrollment. My mixed methods dissertation, structured across three articles, advances the literature in three specific ways. First, I investigate the spatial relationship of college enrollment throughout the United States. By pinpointing clusters of high and low college enrollment and the associated regional characteristics, I identify spaces of educational inequality. Second, by using latent profile analysis, I examine 2019 county-level socioeconomic characteristics to identify distinct rural community types within the Plains region. These rural differences are also associated with differences in college enrollment rates. Third, I conduct an exploratory case study of three counties in Iowa that represent two distinct community profiles based on the findings of the latent profile analysis. The main goal is to understand how community context shapes the college-going goals of state-sponsored college access programs and how these goals are communicated to youth, their parents, community members, and those involved in the college-going process. Through this dissertation, I aim to challenge the perception that to be rural means to be white, poor, and uneducated and instead highlight the spatial diversity of social and economic conditions of rural communities and their relationship to college accessibility. I center the rural experience by studying how rural people and communities are socially, culturally, politically, and economically organized and how these contexts can create, maintain, and reframe college-going cultures. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]