Follow us on Instagram
Try our daily mini crossword
Play our latest news quiz
Download our new app on iOS/Android!

News and Notes: U. to participate in ATI to expand collegiate access to talented low-income students

The University will partner with 30 other colleges and universities in the American Talent Initiative, which aims to expand collegiate access to talented low-income students, according to a University press release.

Members of the ATI “are enhancing their own efforts to recruit and support lower-income students, learn from each other, and contribute to research that will help other colleges and universities expand opportunity,” according to the program’s website.

ADVERTISEMENT

The University plans on reaching its goal by increasing outreach to students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, retaining low-income admits, prioritizing need-based financial aid, and eliminating discrepancies between graduation rates among students from different socioeconomic backgrounds, according to the press release.

“We have made it a priority to increase the socioeconomic diversity of our students,” President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said in a statement, noting that the University has tripled the number of Pell Grant eligible freshmen since 2008.

The ATI plans on graduating 50,000 lower-income students from the top 270 colleges in the country over the next eight years, according to the press release. The "top" universities are defined as those having graduation rates above 70 percent.

Eisgruber serves on the Initiative’s Steering Committee along with President Ana Mari Cauce of University of Washington, President Michael Drake of Ohio State University, and President Dan Porterfield of Franklin & Marshall College, among others.

The participating institutions alongside the University include Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

ADVERTISEMENT