SUNY Oneonta joins effort to help low-income students

Feb. 2—SUNY Oneonta this week announced its membership in the American Talent Initiative, an alliance of 137 four-year institutions "united in a shared goal of enrolling, supporting and graduating 50,000 additional talented, lower-income students across high-graduation-rate colleges and universities by 2025," according to a media release from the university.

ATIs "work to increase access and success is more important than ever, especially as talented students from lower-income backgrounds and communities of color continue to face the impacts of the pandemic," the release said.

According to the release, SUNY Oneonta "sees membership in ATI as a critical opportunity to advance a commitment to supporting students socially, academically and financially, from before they arrive on campus to graduation and beyond."

"SUNY Oneonta is committed to increasing access to higher education for all students, and our membership in the American Talent Initiative is a recognition of the great work that has already been done on our campus to provide opportunities for lower-income students to thrive and succeed," university President Alberto J.F. Cardelle said in the release. "The goals of the alliance align perfectly with our mission, and I'm excited to learn from and share with other institutions as we continue this important work."

ATI works with colleges and universities across the country that graduate at least 70 percent of their students in six years — a threshold that just 341 colleges achieve — to increase the total number of low- and moderate-income students enrolled from about 550,000 to about 600,000 by 2025.

SUNY Oneonta "has joined its fellow members in pledging to a public, aspirational goal to at least maintain, if not increase, lower-income student enrollment over the next several years," the release said. To realize that pledge, SUNY Oneonta "will establish specific goals and strategies to recruit more students from economically diverse backgrounds, increase investments in need-based financial aid, create more equitable student experiences, and, ultimately, minimize equity-based gaps in retention and graduation rates."

SUNY Oneonta is one of the alliance's smallest public institutions and one of just two institutions within the 64-campus State University of New York system to join ATI. In 2021-22, 59% of SUNY Oneonta's full-time undergraduate student population received need-based financial aid, and 32% of full-time undergraduate students received federal Pell grants. The university's six-year graduation rate is 77 percent, well above the national average, the release said.

As a member of ATI, SUNY Oneonta will work with more than 135 institutions to share best practices to increase college access and success, and contribute to research that will help other colleges and universities across the country effectively serve students from lower-income backgrounds.

For more information about the initiative, visit https://americantalentinitiative.org.