Elite colleges target low-income students

After the affirmative action ban, campuses are boosting access through grants and free tuition. White House argues they’re evading the law.

- BY COLLIN BINKLEY

Some of the country’s most prestigious colleges are enrolling record numbers of low-income students — a growing admissions priority in the absence of affirmative action.

America’s top campuses remain crowded with wealth, but some universities have accelerated efforts to reach a wider swath of the country, recruiting more in urban and rural areas and offering free tuition for students whose families are not among the highest earners.

The strategy could lead to friction with the federal government. The Trump administration, which has pulled funding from elite colleges over a range of grievances, has suggested it’s illegal to target needier students. College leaders believe they're on solid legal ground.

At Princeton University, the current freshman class has more low-income students than ever. One in four are eligible for federal Pell grants, which are scholarships reserved for students with the most significant financial need. That’s a leap from two decades ago, when fewer than one in 10 were eligible.

“The only way to increase socioeconomic diversity is to be intentional about it,” Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber said in a statement. “Socioeconomic diversity will increase if and only if college presidents make it a priority.”

In 2024, Princeton set aggressive goals to recruit more low-income students in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in higher education. Without the ability to consider race, officials wrote in a campus report, focusing on economic diversity offers “the university’s greatest opportunity to attract diverse talent.”

The country’s most selective colleges still enroll large proportions of students from the wealthiest 1% of American families. Many of those campuses have tried for years to shed reputations of elitism, with only gradual changes in enrollment.

Records set for enrollment of low-income students