The American Talent Initiative’s Statement of Commitment

Reaffirming a collective and individual commitment among the nation’s leading colleges and universities to accelerate opportunity for lower-income students in service of an equitable, national recovery

Upon joining the American Talent Initiative (ATI), each ATI president or chancellor signed a commitment to support progress toward a shared goal: enrolling and graduating 50,000 additional talented, lower-income students by 2025. The COVID-19 pandemic—which has disproportionately impacted students from lower-income backgrounds and communities of color—brings new urgency to realize this goal.

This Statement asks leaders to reaffirm their institution’s commitment to the ATI goal by pledging to commit publicly to aspirational goals for lower-income student opportunity. Members can build public trust and advance the public good by establishing, and progressing toward, aspirational goals to expand access and success for lower-income students.

By signing this Statement, each member agrees to support the below goals based on their 2019-20, pre-pandemic enrollment data:¹

• Members with a lower-income enrollment share below 15 percent will aim for an ambitious goal between 15 and 20 percent by 2025, or an equally ambitious increase in the number of lower-income students by 2025.
• Members with a lower-income student enrollment share between 15 and 20 percent will make measurable progress toward a 20 percent share of lower-income student enrollment or an equally ambitious increase in the number of lower-income students by 2025.
• Members with a lower-income student enrollment share above 20 percent will aim to at least maintain opportunity for lower-income students at current levels, if not expand enrollment by 2025.
• All members, regardless of lower-income share, aim to minimize equity-based graduation gaps by 2025.

By signing this Statement, each member commits to demonstrate that they are on track to contribute to ATI’s shared 2025 goal by Fall 2023.²

To help realize progress toward the above aims, signatories will be able to:

• Respond to requests for proposals for “accelerator” grants up to $25,000
• Consult with leading higher education experts and engage with other ATI presidents and chancellors on shared challenges and successes.
• Participate in communities of practice devoted to community college transfer, veterans enrollment, and equity in the academic experience and a broader practice-sharing community.
• Support and lead joint efforts to widen opportunity across higher education, such as advocating for substantial increases in federal financial assistance for lower-income students.

Please sign this Statement by June 4, 2021 to certify commitments and sustain membership in the American Talent Initiative.

The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the deep inequities faced by students from lower-income communities, underscoring the importance of ATI members’ public purpose and steps they can take to increase equitable access and success now and in the future. Together, we can generate the collective momentum needed to accelerate opportunity for lower-income students across the ATI sector and the nation.

We hope you will join us in this effort.

¹We are committed to increasing access and opportunity for students from the bottom half of the income distribution, which approximately aligns with the eligibility for the Pell grant. For now, we’ll continue to use the Pell grant to measure ATI’s progress towards its 50,000-by-2025 goal. As we move forward, we will consider other ways to measure student enrollment from the bottom half of the income distribution. In measuring an individual institution’s progress, we’re open to discussing alternative measures of socioeconomic diversity on a case-by-case basis.

²Measurable progress may include: an increase in the number or share of entering first-time lower-income students, the number of lower-income transfer students, and/or the number or share of continuing/returning lower-income students. These data are already collected as part of the annual ATI data collection. Following consultation with the ATI team, an institution may opt to submit enrollment data by income to demonstrate increases in access for low- and middle-income students, especially those who are near-Pell or who have need, but are ineligible for Pell (e.g., DACA students).

If you are interested in speaking with a member of the ATI Steering Committee in advance of signing, please email Adam Rabinowitz Adam.Rabinowitz@aspeninstitute.org, who will gladly make the connection. If you’d like to sign a PDF copy of this statement, you can also contact Adam.