Stony Brook University is a member of The American Talent Initiative (ATI) — a group of top colleges and universities that work together to expand access and opportunity for talented low-income students. ATI began in 2016 to expand educational opportunities at high-graduation-rate institutions across the country.
Stony Brook is one of 125 universities that has signed on to ATI’s Accelerating Opportunity campaign, which aims to increase the total number of lower-income students attending top-performing colleges from approximately 550,000 to 600,000 by 2025, and beyond 2025, to sustain that increase.
ATI’s 2021 Progress Report provides an update on the campaign’s progress and outlines the steps that ATI members like Stony Brook are taking to make their campuses more inclusive and supportive of students from lower-income backgrounds. The report includes new enrollment data from the 2019–20 academic year as well as Fall 2020, and shows that despite setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, certain institutions are still making progress on advancing equity for underserved communities.
Reflecting Stony Brook’s continued commitment to equity, the report shows that the University is among the top 10 ATI member institutions to lead the way in achieving significant Federal Pell Grant student enrollment growth since the start of the initiative and the highest Pell enrollment shares. In addition, during the past few years, Stony Brook has increased its six-year Pell graduation rate from 74 percent (2011 entering cohort) to 78 percent (2013 entering cohort).
“Stony Brook is fully committed to ATI’s Accelerating Opportunity campaign and to eliminating the systemic issues of economic, social, and racial inequality that have divided our country for far too long,” said Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis. “Stony Brook has a history of fostering opportunities for social mobility and growth for underrepresented students both through a culture of diversity and inclusivity as well as on-campus mentoring and support to retain students to graduation. Moving forward, it is more important than ever that we collectively achieve this goal of enrolling, supporting, and graduating additional lower-income students by 2025 and beyond.”
