Abstract: Going to college is an important way for rural students to change their destiny. However, as a vulnerable student group, how can rural students change their lives through higher education and narrow the gap with their urban peers? Based on the "Beijing College Students Panel Survey", this article attempts to give an answer by examining enrollment, growth at university, and employment development in a dynamic research perspective. The study finds that rural students have notable disadvantages in family background, which significantly affects their national college entrance examination scores and creates a gap when they enter the colleges. However, rural students have higher academic performance than urban students through their hard work. Therefore they obtain competitive employment results with urban students. This is achieved through rural students' hard-work, greater efforts and accumulated human capital, which make up for the disadvantages in family background. The study suggests that colleges and universities should help them through "counterattacks" of life by addressing the over-exiting mentality, focusing on the non-cognitive development, providing developmental financial funding, as well as employment guidance for rural students.

Key words: rural students, growth at university, employment development, family background