Earlier this year, the New York Times reported on an upswing of Pell Grant recipients at colleges in the American Talent Initiative (ATI). Launched in 2016, the initiative is a Bloomberg Philanthropies-supported collaboration between the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program, Ithaka S+R, and a growing alliance of colleges and universities dedicated to substantially expanding opportunity and access for low- and moderate-income students. And one leading member of this group is Colorado College.
ATI was inspired by decades of work by individual colleges and universities to expand college opportunity as well as research showing that tens of thousands of high-achieving, low- and moderate-income students are unable to gain access at top colleges and universities. At these member schools, lower-income enrollment has fully recovered from its recent decline. CC’s involvement in ATI is largely due to Dan Porterfield, CEO of the Aspen Institute and a member of CC’s Board of Trustees.
“One of the things that’s really fabulous about having the American Talent Initiative is that as most institutions struggled with the implications of COVID, causing the enrollment of low-income students and the retention of enrolled students to go down, the ATI presidents were able to work together on strategies to reverse those losses,” says Porterfield. “Last year we saw the success of that with an increase of more than eight thousand low-income students in just one year across these institutions.”
Porterfield sees great potential for the schools involved with ATI and knows the benefits these partnerships can bring to the campuses and their students.
“I predict that the graduation rate for low-income students will be very close to, if not at or above, the level of non-low-income students,” says Porterfield. “There is talent in every ZIP code, in every community of our country, and certainly every corner of Colorado. And when we recruit inclusively and make it possible for students from all walks of life to come to a great school like Colorado College, we then invest in the education of every student, because by having a more even, more talented and highly motivated student body, everybody benefits.”
Porterfield notes that 15% of the country needs a Pell Grant and 93% of the country needs some financial aid when attending college. He believes that when we invest in financial aid, we’re investing in talent and by having a stronger aid budget we are then able to have a student body that reflects our values and allows us to recruit even more.
“Colorado College is moving forward to recruit a talented student body from more backgrounds by increasing financial aid,” says Porterfield. “Doing that helps CC show itself as a peer to institutions like Princeton, Yale, and Amherst. CC is enhancing their student body through a talent strategy that involves more financial aid and more intentionality of recruiting from underrepresented communities.”
Porterfield knows that CC is the perfect school for high-talent, low-income students because there are so many opportunities and chances to connect. He notes that the Block Plan is about really connecting with a class, and that having highly talented and motivated students from more backgrounds means more ideas, more experiences, more solution space.
“One of the things that’s great about this project is that by making more students who are high-talent, low-income aware of great college opportunities, we help them,” Porterfield says. “We help their communities, we help all students, and ultimately help the country.”