Colleges Supporting Low-Income Students

Emily Genao

November 6th, 2007

In the wake of the recent controversy over student loans, leaders of 19 state university systems are spearheading efforts to make higher education more affordable to students coming from low-income families. The new initiative, Access to Success, will monitor improvement in college attendance and graduation rates among low-income students. Access to Success will have similar goals to the initiative for enhanced college rankings: more transparency, more dissemination of information.

Access to Success is another one of the baby steps being taken in the path towards closing the achievement gap for lower income, minority students. The issue of the achievement gap is one that has long been recognized as being part of high school education, and it is now obvious that it is part of higher education as well. In an age of billion-dollar master plans, it is important not to forget that all students should be able to pursue college degrees.