With the advent of April, many Brown students look forward to the promises of next year, when the community will welcome the new class of 2017. This incoming first-year class is considered the most diverse ever, with 45 percent identifying as students of color, The Herald reported Monday. But there remain many talented and deserving students who aren’t even considered by the University. And it is not because their applications didn’t stand out — it is because they never submitted them in the first place. The University must work to expand its outreach to low-income, rural students in particular.
A significant cohort is missing: low-income students from rural high schools. A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that most high-achieving students from low-income households do not apply to a single competitive college or university. Several factors contribute to this phenomenon, such as a lack of awareness of such institutions, concerns about affording tuition and the rise of alternative forms of learning.
These students’ dilemmas are indeed as unfortunate as they seem, because they can easily be solved with one thing: information. With easier access to crucial information — about schools’ programs and financial aid offerings, for instance — high-achieving, low-income rural students should have just as much of a chance as a student from a private high school in New York City. Inspired by their peers, parents, guidance counselors or teachers, high-income students from urban areas are often raised to aspire to attend top colleges.
But for students in rural areas, the story plays out quite differently. According to the National Bureau for Economic Research study, most of these students have never met anyone — a teacher, another student or guidance counselor — who attended a selective college. Without guidance, students qualified to or interested in attending a selective institution have far more difficulty with the admissions process and navigating the numerous applications for financial aid.
Top universities such as Brown must expand their efforts to incorporate these left-out students and pay more attention to recruitment. They can take note from an intervention conducted by the Stanford University Institute for Economic Policy Research, in which about 40,000 high-achieving, low-income rural students were provided valuable resources such as the idea of “net price” versus “sticker price,” graduation rates for top colleges versus local colleges and application fee waivers. These interventions worked wonders. The students submitted 19 percent more applications, and 31 percent of them were likelier to be admitted to a highly selective institution. By eliminating one of the biggest deterrents — the misconception about what these institutions would cost — and raising awareness about the feasibility of attending, top universities can strive to become more diverse, as they already claim to do.
Attracting these intelligent students from rural areas is necessary not only for the benefit of the University, but also for the benefit of the public. By expanding its efforts to appeal to students in rural public schools, Brown can pick up crucial pieces missing in its student body. We urge the administration to make an invested effort in obtaining low-income, rural talent.
Editorials are written by The Herald’s editorial page board: its editor, Dan Jeon, and its members, Mintaka Angell, Samuel Choi, Nicholas Morley and Rachel Occhiogrosso. Send comments to editorials@browndailyherald.com.