In the United States, some of the most prestigious universities are admitting record numbers of low-income students, following the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in university admissions. This has become an increasingly important priority in the college admissions process across the country.
While there are still a significant number of affluent students attending top American universities, some institutions have accelerated efforts to recruit students from a wider range of socioeconomic backgrounds. They are intensifying recruitment efforts in urban and rural areas, and offering tuition-free benefits to students from families that do not belong to the highest income bracket.
At Princeton University, this year’s freshman class has the highest number of students from low-income families in its history. One-quarter of the new students are eligible for Federal Pell Grants, which are specifically designed to assist the most economically disadvantaged students. This proportion has seen a significant increase compared to 20 years ago when less than 10% of students qualified.
After the Supreme Court banned universities from considering race and ethnicity in admissions decisions, Princeton University set an active goal to admit more students from low-income families. According to a campus report, focusing on economic diversity in a race-blind environment is seen as the “greatest opportunity for the university to attract diverse talents.”
Currently, only a few universities have publicly disclosed data on the number of low-income students admitted this year, with national data set to be released by the federal government next year.
However, based on an analysis by the Associated Press, among the 17 highly selective universities that have released the latest data, almost all have increased the number of Pell Grant-eligible students admitted from 2023 to this year. Most universities have seen consecutive increases over the past two years, with no significant declines reported.
Yale University, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have all set records for admitting Pell Grant students in the past two years.
Part of the growth in these numbers can be attributed to federal policies that made more students eligible for Pell Grants last year. However, university leadership also believes that these increases reflect their own efforts.
The number of low-income students in the freshman class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has grown by 43% in the past two years, with low-income students accounting for over a quarter of this year’s incoming class. The administration credits this growth to the institution’s policy of providing tuition-free education to students from families earning less than $200,000 annually.
Swarthmore College has seen the most significant increase in the proportion of Pell Grant students, jumping from 17% two years ago to 30% last year.
The White House has accused universities in multiple legal memorandums of prioritizing students based on income or geography, which it equates to using “racial proxy indicators,” in violation of the Supreme Court’s ruling banning affirmative action in 2023.
In a letter in June of this year, the Trump administration accused the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) of “implicitly considering race while nominally not doing so,” criticizing the university for taking into account factors such as applicants’ family income, zip codes, and high school backgrounds during admissions.