Many students coming from low-income families are considered one of the brightest and the ones with potential. However, many of them are not able to get in to the top colleges in the United States for many reasons and one of them is the cost.
The presidents of the top 30 schools in the US believe that they miss out on the best students who come from the low income families, and decided to make changes to increase enrollment of these students, ABC KSAT 12 reported. President Michael Drake from the Ohio State University admitted that they have been accepting more students from the upper half of the income distribution, but they also believe that when it comes to talent, the potential is more evenly distributed.
These schools consist of both private and public colleges and universities, like the Ivy League schools, Georgia Tech, University of Maryland, and many others. Among these are Franklin and Marshall College who also expressed their commitment last month to enroll more low income students, according WITF.
The goal is to encourage institutions who have the highest graduation rates to admit more students from low income families, and low income families are those that earn less than the median income which is $57,000. These schools aim to enroll 12% of these students and that is equivalent to 50,000 in total to the top colleges in the US in the next eight years.
As to how they will do it, the admissions processes are not bound to change, but they plan to lower the cost of college with the help of financial aid. This is because they believe that these student qualify just like the rest, only that they do not apply because college is expensive. They also plan to make changes with their recruitment policies by making efforts to directly reach out to students.
