Attending the most selective colleges has an outsized impact on the economic mobility of  low-income students and their families and on access to many of the top leadership positions in the U.S. As economist Raj Chetty has found, less than one percent of Americans attend the most selective colleges, yet they account for 13.4% of those in the top .1% of the income distribution, a quarter of U.S. Senators, half of all Rhodes Scholars, and three-fourths of Supreme Court justices appointed in the last half-century.

 

Yet at many of the most selective schools, more students come from the top 1 percent income bracket than from the bottom 50% (National Bureau of Economic Research). Low-income students face limited access to those opportunities due to a selective college admissions process too often marked by a lack of transparency and information, systemic biases towards affluent students, reduced access to early decision advantages, and challenges navigating the financial aid process.

 

We were conceived and organized by Grove Impact, a nonprofit that launches systemic social impact initiatives. We support collaboration between skill-building nonprofits and selective colleges to empower low-income students to apply to selective colleges and advance on the pathway to economic mobility and leadership.