Penn Partners With The Posse Foundation in Order to Enroll More Low-Income Students

In the latest JBHE rankings of low-income students at the nation’s 30 highest-ranked universities, the University of Pennsylvania ranked near the bottom. Only 8.4 percent of Penn students received federal Pell Grants. This placed Penn 27th among the top 30 universities in percentage of the total student body that was from low-income families.

But now the University of Pennsylvania has taken a major step to improve its performance in enrolling more students from low-income households. The university has announced that it will become the 34th institutional partner of The Posse Foundation. Penn is the first Ivy League institution to join the program, which seeks to bring more students from low-income families to the nation’s most selective colleges and universities.

Under the program, Penn agrees to select at least 10 low-income students from the public school system of Miami, Florida. The selected students will receive full scholarships. They will become a “posse” who will participate in pre-college training and meet regularly when they enroll at Penn.

Over the past 20 years, 2,650 students have enrolled at college and university partners of The Posse Foundation. They graduate at a rate of over 90 percent.

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