Washington U. in St. Louis Plans to Double Percentage of Low-Income Students

Washington University in St. Louis plans to double its share of students eligible for Pell Grants by 2020, a university spokeswoman wrote in an email to The Chronicle. The private college says it will spend roughly $25-million per year to double its percentage of Pell-eligible students, from 6 percent to 13 percent.

The college has been criticized for years for its lack of socioeconomic diversity. Most recently, The New York Times’s Upshot column highlighted that lack in a list of the nation’s most-accessible elite colleges.

“We feel we have an important responsibility to serve talented people, independent of their background,” the university’s chancellor, Mark S. Wrighton, told the Upshot in an article published on Thursday.

The University of Chicago made a similar announcement in the fall, outlining various steps it would take to better support low-income students.