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Atlanta, GA | Posted: December 13, 2016
Laura Diamond
Media Relations
404-894-6016
@LauraRDiamond
American Talent Initiative Members
Colleges participating in the American Talent Initiative will further the national goal of developing more talent from every American neighborhood by:
Here are the 30 founding members:
Amherst College
Bates College
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Duke University
Franklin & Marshall College
Georgetown University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University
Lehigh University
The Ohio State University
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Spelman College
Stanford University
University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Richmond
University of Texas at Austin
University of Washington
Vanderbilt University
Vassar College
Washington University in St. Louis
Williams College
Yale University
Summary Sentence:
ATI members seek to attract, enroll and graduate the most qualified students, regardless of family income.
Full Summary:
Members of the American Talent Initiative seek to attract, enroll and graduate the most qualified students, regardless of family income. Georgia Tech is the only public college in Georgia participating in the initiative.
ATI - Horizontal
ATI - VerticalThe Georgia Institute of Technology is collaborating with 29 other universities across the country to help more students from lower-income families earn a college degree.
The new American Talent Initiative (ATI), which was announced today, allows the country’s most respected public and private higher education institutions to share strategies to substantially increase the number of talented students from low- and moderate-income families who successfully complete college. The founding members seek to attract, enroll and graduate the most qualified students, regardless of family income. They will also contribute to research that will help other colleges graduate more high-achieving, lower-income students.
The initiative is supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies and was created with a national goal of educating 50,000 additional high-achieving, lower-income students at the 270 colleges and universities with the highest graduation rates by 2025.
For Georgia Tech, the new alliance builds on other initiatives improving college graduation rates, especially among underrepresented students. The Institute is the only public college in Georgia currently participating in this collaborative effort.
“Georgia Tech is proud to partner with the American Talent Initiative and looks forward to participating in this nationwide collaboration addressing access and affordability for some of the country’s best and brightest students,” President G.P. “Bud” Peterson said. “This initiative is entirely consistent with the state of Georgia’s efforts to increase the number of college graduates through the Complete College Georgia initiative. Through a sharing of ideas, both of these initiatives provide a great opportunity to impact the lives of many students across the state and maximize their potential.”
As a member of ATI, Georgia Tech committed to improvements in several areas. Goals include accomplishing the following by 2022:
“At Georgia Tech we seek to recruit the nation’s most talented students and an initiative like ATI helps improve college access,” said Director of Undergraduate Admission Rick Clark. “Improving socioeconomic diversity starts with outreach. For example, this spring we’ll mail a planning for college booklet to low-income sophomores and juniors that helps them think through their college choices, as well as other critical information on admission and financial aid resources.”
ATI expects to add more top-performing colleges every year to join Tech and the other founding members.
The Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program and Ithaka S+R, two not-for-profit organizations coordinating the initiative, will study the practices that lead to measureable progress and share those through regular publications.
“If we're serious about promoting social mobility in America, we need to ensure that every qualified high school student in the US has an opportunity to attend college,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and former mayor of New York City. “I'm so glad that so many great colleges and universities have stepped up today and committed themselves toward that goal. This is a vital first step toward creating a more meritocratic society."
