Top-Performing Low-Income Students and College Choice
Each cohort of high-school students includes some 35,000 who are high-achieving and low-income—their test scores are in the top 10 percent and their income is in the bottom quarter. But new research shows that many of them are not applying to the colleges where they would probably have the best outcomes.
Caroline M. Hoxby, a professor of economics at Stanford University, presented some of her findings about how those students choose colleges at a session of the College Board Forum here on Friday. She also shared suggestions about what colleges might do to help.
While highly qualified low-income students should have many strong college options, 82 percent of them did not apply to any “good fit” colleges, defined as ones in which students like them experience good outcomes, Ms. Hoxby said. Most of those students’ “undermatching,” or enrolling in less-selective colleges than they are qualified to attend, happened at the application stage, she found. In other words, if the students applied to good-fit colleges, they were likely to be admitted and to attend.
The students who undermatch trip up in specific parts of the college search, Ms. Hoxby said. They tend not to use application-fee waivers, they apply to too few colleges, they don’t understand how financial-aid will lower the amount they will pay, and they rely on local word of mouth instead of other sources to pick which colleges to consider.
All of those factors fit together, Ms. Hoxby said. “If you only apply to one college, you aren’t going to be very risk taking in college applications,” she said.