Recruit Diversity

A recent troubling analysis of student college applications found that despite extensive financial aid and outreach initiatives, most high-achieving, low-income high school students fail to even apply to America’s most selective colleges.

This trend persists “despite the fact that selective institutions would often cost them less, owing to generous financial aid, than the resource-poor two-year and non-selective four-year institutions to which they actually apply,” the report noted. This trend is especially alarming, since a significant portion of these promising students attend local colleges with lower graduation rates, making it less likely that they will graduate with a college degree—an increasingly important factor in securing higher wages and full employment.

Of high-achieving high school seniors, only 34 percent of those in the bottom quartile of the income distribution applied to selective college and universities as compared to 78 percent of those in the top quartile. Within this talented pool, there are 15 high-income student applications for every low-income student application.

Both colleges and students are harmed by this pattern by needlessly restricting their choices—students lose access to resources and opportunities including generous financial aid programs at selective schools, and colleges lose out on promising candidates to the detriment of socioeconomic diversity. Selective universities can and should pursue keener outreach. The report asserted, “widely-used policies—college admissions, staff recruiting, college campus visits, college access programs—are likely to be ineffective with income-typical students.”

The dearth of applications is partially explained by the tendency of talented students with lesser means to adopt different application strategies—as opposed to the recommended strategy of applying to a range of schools—than their higher-income peers largely follow. Part of the problem is the isolation of these students, both at the geographic and high school levels, from other high achievers, which deprives them of first-hand knowledge through their teachers or counselors of programs at selective colleges that would significantly reduce the financial burdens for higher education.

Harvard has maintained a commendable policy of outreach to high-achieving low-income students, supported by exceptional financial resources that fund broader searches. But that Harvard’s undergraduate student body is still not very economically diverse is a sign that more work is needed. Encouragingly, Harvard recently announced that it would raise next year’s financial aid budget by $10 million, a nearly six-percent increase.

The onus is on selective universities, increasingly seen as the gatekeepers to success, to engineer better-targeted outreach. More personalized recruiting techniques through calls and emails, but especially through actual alumni representatives, should be prioritized over the glossy viewbooks listing high sticker prices that can intimidate lower income applicants.

The opportunities offered by America’s best colleges ought to go to those students who are qualified rather than those who are simply wealthier. The mark of a truly meritocratic system of higher education and a robust, mobile economy will be a student body whose composition faithfully reflects the economic diversity of high-achieving students in the United States.