What are the regions of the country that have the biggest struggle applying/getting into college?

Applying to College
1

most competitive i mean

2

For most college students, affordability is probably the main hurdle.

Because most college students attend in-state public universities or community colleges, affordability issues are primarily driven by cost and financial aid policies at in-state public universities and community colleges.

You can probably get an idea by running net price calculators:

For each state, for each of several family income levels:

  • Commuting to a community college.
  • Commuting to a non-flagship state university.
  • Residential attendance at a non-flagship state university.
  • Commuting to the state flagship.
  • Residential attendance at the state flagship.
3

If you do not want to run a lot of net price calculators, you can check student loan debt by state as a rough approximation: http://ticas.org/posd/map-state-data-2015

NM, CA, LA, OK, HI, WA, FL appear to have relatively lower levels of student loan debt. NH, PA, DE, RI, MN, ME appear to have relatively higher levels of student loan debt.

4

The metropolitan areas of NY, MA, NJ and CA tend to send many students to highly selective colleges. This may appear to indicate a highly competitive admission environment for these applicants, but note as well that students from these areas tend to enroll successfully at highly selective colleges in large numbers.