• Despite decades of reform, opportunity gaps persist. High-achieving, low-income students are still overlooked—not because they lack ability, but because key support is delayed, inconsistent, or missing entirely.
• Make advanced learning the expectation, not a luxury. Embedding enrichment into funding plans and digital access ensures high performers aren’t excluded based on their geographic location. 
• Course availability means little without enrollment. Automatically placing eligible students into advanced classes shifts the burden off families and helps close persistent participation gaps.
• During the summer before college starts, even admitted students can slip through. Light-touch nudges and early clarity reduce friction and help them actually make it to campus.

Despite decades of reform, efforts to expand academic opportunity have often widened the very divides they sought to narrow.¹ Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs—once championed as tools for upward mobility—are now largely confined to well-funded districts. High-achieving students in under-resourced schools face a different reality. Talent is not in short supply. Access is not.

In East Asia, selective admissions depend heavily on high-stakes exams. These are designed to measure merit. In practice, they measure preparation, which is often shaped by paid, privatized support such as hagwons in South Korea, juku in Japan, and buxiban in China.² Most low-income families cannot afford that level of investment. The structure of the system privileges those who can.

India offers another case. Full-tuition scholarships exist for high-achieving students from low-income families, yet application rates remain low. Procedural hurdles, fragmented information, and minimal advising constrain access. According to recent survey data from the Youth Dreamers Foundation (2023), many qualified students never apply for major postsecondary scholarships—not because of a lack of aspiration but because information arrives too late.³

Budget cuts have made matters worse in some regions. For example, with the expiration of pandemic-related relief funds, many school systems in the United States have scaled back after-school tutoring, summer learning, and counseling services.⁴ These are not extras. For students without private alternatives, they are essential. Without them, high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds are left navigating high-stakes processes with even less support.

Across the globe, the same pattern persists: preparation—not potential—determines opportunity. Unless enrichment becomes more equitably distributed, and unless support begins earlier and lasts longer, selective institutions will continue to miss the very students they are best equipped to serve.

In under-resourced schools, structural inequities often surface immediately. Instructional materials are outdated. Science labs lack essential equipment. Elective offerings are limited or unavailable. These aren’t just superficial shortcomings; they are structural indicators of how funding streams constrain what ambitious students can reasonably achieve.

The disparities in the education system are well established in global and national data, and don’t only revolve around socio-economic status. In the United States, school districts serving the highest proportions of students of color receive $23 billion less annually than predominantly White districts with the same enrollment.⁵ On average, high-poverty schools spend $1,200 less per student. That shortfall directly reduces access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses, qualified educators, enrichment programs, and academic advising—all of which are crucial for students aiming to distinguish themselves in competitive admissions or career pathways.

While equity-minded formulas have been introduced in many jurisdictions, their effectiveness hinges on how resources are delivered—not just how they’re allocated. In 2023–2024, for instance, only 18 U.S. states directed more per-pupil funding to lower-income districts.⁶ This major discrepancy is driven by a deeper structural vulnerability: the continued reliance on local property taxes. Affluent communities can generate stable revenue streams regardless of state-level fluctuations, while under-resourced schools remain exposed to broader economic downturns and policy shifts. During recessions or budget contractions, the very districts intended to be buffered by equity measures often face the steepest losses.

The impacts of this instability show up in the daily decisions of school leaders. Thirty-seven percent of U.S. principals report that budget constraints limit their ability to provide academic enrichment, and 30 percent cite staff shortages as a direct consequence.⁷ Even when programs exist, capacity is constrained: only 42% of schools can accommodate all interested students in after-school or advanced opportunities.⁷ A similar trend emerges in the United Kingdom. In Scotland, a recent survey found that in the most economically disadvantaged regions, only 45% of secondary-school-aged children said they take part in a club or activity outside school, compared with 65% participation in the most affluent areas.⁸

The stakes are higher than résumé building. Enrichment opportunities support exploration, identity development, and intellectual confidence. For high-performing students, they create the scaffolding that helps translate raw talent into visible achievement. When those opportunities are removed, students lose the contexts in which their abilities are recognized and developed.

Even when equity is prioritized on paper, delivery often falls short. This opportunity targets core system levers: how schools are funded and how enrichment is made available. Applying decision principles to both can help build lasting infrastructure that yields more consistent and equitable outcomes.

Embed Equity in Core Funding Systems

Equity-oriented policies are built into many national and provincial education frameworks, but their impact hinges on how resources are allocated—not just how goals are framed. In many countries, school budgets are still heavily tied to local property taxes, creating a structural advantage for wealthier districts. While many systems attempt to compensate by directing supplemental funds to lower-income schools, these efforts are often inconsistent—subject to political cycles, economic downturns, and short-term budgetary pressures.

Minnesota’s equalization formula offers a more durable, system-level alternative. By adjusting state support according to each district’s property wealth per pupil, the model systematically offsets disparities in local tax capacity.⁹ Local and state revenues are blended to ensure that districts with weaker tax bases receive proportionally more per-student funding. The outcome is a more consistent and predictable allocation across schools without requiring annual redistributive debates.

Importantly, Minnesota’s model treats equity as a structural principle rather than a discretionary layer. The equalization formula is embedded in statute, making it much more difficult to dilute over time.⁹ From a decision science perspective, this functions as a commitment device—a rules-based constraint that limits incremental erosion and reduces policy drift in the face of political turnover or shifting fiscal pressures. Instead of relying on renewed advocacy during each budget cycle, the formula preserves intent through automatic, enforceable adjustments. 

Other jurisdictions can adopt similar safeguards. Legislating formula-based funding mechanisms that adjust for local wealth, embedding equity triggers directly into allocation rules, and requiring periodic reassessment are actionable steps. These structural tools do not remove the role of political negotiation entirely, but they shift the default toward fairness. They make it harder—both procedurally and behaviorally—to erode equity incrementally.

Set Enrichment as a Default Expectation

Enrichment opportunities—advanced coursework, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) electives, and creative programs—remain among the most unequally distributed assets in education. In underfunded schools, students often miss out not because of ability but because their environment lacks the staff or funding to offer such options. Over time, that absence compounds. Fewer chances to explore interests, signal achievement, or build competitive portfolios can rapidly narrow a student's trajectory long before graduation.

One path forward is to treat enrichment as a system default—something that is expected, not exceptional. That shift requires two pillars: scalable digital delivery and policy-backed planning structures.

Digitally, the state of Louisiana’s Course Choice program offers a clear example. It enables students to enroll in AP and elective courses virtually, during school hours, when those courses aren’t available locally.¹⁰ The logistics are simple but impactful: schools don’t have to hire extra staff, and students aren’t penalized for where they live.

Policy mechanisms can reinforce that infrastructure. For example, Massachusetts’ Student Opportunity Act (2019) requires districts to submit Student Opportunity Plans detailing how new funding will improve access to learning—explicitly including enrichment.¹¹

They must outline concrete, evidence-based actions, specify timelines, and report measurable progress. From a decision science perspective, this approach introduces several system-level nudges:

• It repositions enrichment as a default policy goal, not a discretionary add-on.
• It creates implementation intentions by requiring district leaders to commit in advance to specific strategies.
• It establishes feedback loops by mandating public reporting, enabling oversight and course correction.

Together, Louisiana and Massachusetts demonstrate how enrichment can shift from a scarcity-based offering to an institutionalized right. While neither model eliminates variation in delivery, both reduce reliance on local discretion by embedding enrichment into the system’s rules and expectations. These structural changes make it more likely that high-achieving students in low-income areas will not be constrained by staffing gaps or local budgets. 

The connection between math coursework and long-term outcomes has been documented for decades. Advanced math completion in high school is associated with stronger Grade Point Average (GPAs), greater college access, higher rates of STEM enrollment, and sustained academic momentum beyond graduation.^12,13 However, despite clear indicators of academic achievement, many high-performing students from low-income or underrepresented backgrounds are not enrolling in the very courses that make these outcomes more likely.

In theory, eligibility should drive opportunity. In practice, the influence of family background often proves more predictive. National data from the United States reveal that students from the highest socioeconomic groups who rank in the bottom half of math performance are more likely to complete college than students in the lowest socioeconomic group who rank in the top half.¹⁴ This pattern holds even when schools offer advanced math options and students have demonstrated readiness.

The Education Trust, a national nonprofit focused on educational equity, and Just Equations, a policy institute that promotes math as a pathway to opportunity, analyzed data from a longitudinal study examining math outcomes in high school students to determine whether advanced math access translates into enrollment for high-achieving students. The answer, unfortunately, is uneven across multiple demographics. Students from historically underrepresented groups—including Black and Latino students—and students from low-income families who passed Algebra I in eighth grade (an early marker of readiness) still enrolled in advanced math at lower rates than their equally capable peers.¹⁵ These courses were available in their schools, which rules out budgetary explanations. The barrier, in some cases, isn’t a lack of supply but rather low uptake.

Additionally, students who did take advanced math fared better. Among high-achieving Black, Latino, and low-income students, those enrolled in advanced math reported higher GPAs, greater postsecondary enrollment, stronger credit accumulation in STEM, and more consistent persistence toward degree completion.¹⁵ Therefore, in some schools, the opportunity to enroll in advanced courses is already in place, yet availability alone has not resulted in equitable participation.

Part of the explanation lies in instructional signaling. Students who advanced into higher math reported having teachers who set clear goals at higher rates than peers of similar academic ability who did not.¹⁵ These differences may seem marginal, yet they reflect patterns many educators recognize: clear expectations, when consistently communicated, help students interpret a course as something designed with them in mind.

Social context reinforces these patterns. In the same dataset, high-achieving Black students were less likely to cite reasons such as “my friends are going to take it” or “most students like me do” when explaining their motivation to pursue advanced math.¹⁵ This suggests that in many school environments, enrollment decisions are shaped not only by academic readiness, but by whether students see participation as socially and psychologically safe. When students do not see their identities reflected in a course, they may view enrollment as isolating or risky—even when they meet the prerequisites.

This has been documented at scale. The Separate and Unequal Under One Roof study analyzed enrollment trends and course-taking behavior among over 240,000 high school students in North Carolina.¹⁶ Schools with racially unbalanced AP math classrooms saw lower future enrollment among Black students, despite academic eligibility. When incoming ninth graders observed older Black peers in advanced courses, however, participation increased significantly—independent of test scores and family background. 

For district leaders and policy teams, expanding access is only part of the challenge. Participation depends on more than availability—it hinges on whether students see advanced classrooms as spaces where they are expected, welcomed, and represented. Without that, disparities will persist, regardless of what is technically offered.

Default-based enrollment policies offer a high-impact, low-cost solution. Rather than asking students and families to opt into advanced classes, school systems can shift the burden by automatically enrolling students who demonstrate readiness. When students exceed academic benchmarks—whether by scoring above the state standard or earning top grades within their school context—they should be placed into advanced courses automatically. Opt-out should remain an option, but opt-in systems rely on families to navigate opaque processes and on educators to identify students individually.

This strategy is particularly powerful when grounded in school-specific benchmarks. State-level cutoffs may miss students who are excelling in under-resourced contexts. Given the wide variation in school funding, student supports, and course sequencing, local performance indicators often provide a more equitable basis for placement. A student who ranks in the top tier of their school’s math or English class may not outscore peers statewide, but is clearly ready for more advanced material. Districts that adopt this contextualized, default placement approach can expand opportunity without relying solely on standardized tests.

Central Texas offers a strong case study for the benefits of automatic enrollment. In 2014, the Education Equals Economics Alliance (E3 Alliance), a regional education collaborative focused on data-driven strategies to improve student success in Central Texas, found that two-thirds of Black students and half of Latino students who had scored at the highest level on the fifth-grade math exam were not enrolled in Algebra I by eighth grade.¹⁷ Through a combination of automatic enrollment, advisor training, and proactive outreach, this changed. By 2021, more than 80% of these students were enrolled in Algebra I. Participation increased by 20 to 30 percentage points, with the most significant gains among students previously underrepresented.

Importantly, default enrollment should not be limited to math. Several U.S. states have expanded their policies to include English language arts, science, and social studies.¹⁸ When districts open up advanced coursework across subjects, they unlock different pathways to success and reflect the full range of student strengths.

Although structural policies can increase access, instructional practices determine whether that access translates into sustained engagement and achievement. Automatically enrolling students into advanced courses also increases representation—particularly for students from historically underrepresented backgrounds—but peer demographics alone are not sufficient to foster belonging. Teachers play a central role in shaping students’ perceptions of whether they deserve to be there.

To close opportunity gaps at scale, systems must align policy with practice. Default enrollment addresses access, but sustained success depends on daily classroom signals. Embedding wise feedback into grading norms—clear, critical input paired with affirmation—can increase academic trust and long-term outcomes in low-income, high-achieving students.¹⁹ Together, structural and instructional shifts can expand representation and reinforce that students belong, reducing achievement gaps not just at entry, but also throughout the pipeline.

Attending a selective college remains one of the strongest predictors of upward mobility, long-term earnings, and access to influential professional networks.²⁰ Yet despite their qualifications, many high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds never apply. In a foundational study on this issue, economists Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner found that the majority of very high-achieving, low-income students submitted no applications to selective institutions.²¹ Those who did were admitted and graduated at rates comparable to their wealthier peers. Those who didn’t were disproportionately enrolled in local two-year or non-selective four-year institutions—schools with fewer instructional resources, weaker peer effects, and limited alumni connections. Three key barriers explain this underapplication problem:

1. Scarcity of Attention

Low-income students often manage a set of urgent, overlapping responsibilities—work hours, family care, and housing instability—that constrain their ability to plan for the future.²² As behavioral economists Mullainathan and Shafir theorize, financial scarcity reduces cognitive bandwidth, narrowing focus to immediate demands.²³ Under these conditions, assembling a selective college application—navigating essays, forms, and deadlines—becomes a deferred task. Even highly capable students may miss critical steps, not from lack of ambition, but because these processes assume time, support, and mental space they simply cannot afford.

2. Misconceptions About Price

Selective institutions often list the highest published tuition rates, commonly referred to as sticker prices, but offer the most generous financial aid. Although many low-income students would prefer to pay less to attend a top-tier private university than a nearby public college, financial aid information is often opaque by design.²¹ Financial aid packages are calculated only after admission, so students must apply first to learn their real out-of-pocket expenses. Without localized examples, clear comparisons, or context about how aid is awarded, students default to inaccurate assumptions—often ruling out the very schools that serve them best.

3. Limited Exposure and Outreach

Students can’t aspire to opportunities they’ve never encountered. Many high-achieving students from low-income schools misunderstand what selective liberal arts colleges are—or mistakenly believe they don’t offer science or pre-med majors. For example, economists Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner, leading researchers in education access and equity, conducted an in-depth study of several hundred high-achieving, low-income 12th-grade students across the U.S.²¹ Their findings revealed entrenched misunderstandings about selective institutions. Students often assumed that “liberal arts” colleges focused solely on the arts or humanities, misunderstood their academic breadth, and questioned their affordability or relevance for professional pathways like medicine or graduate school. These misperceptions are not benign. They shape application patterns and restrict entry into institutions that could significantly improve long-term outcomes. Additionally, many selective institutions target recruitment toward schools where a high proportion of students already meet traditional admissions metrics.²¹ This leaves out thousands of low-income schools that serve students with exceptional academic potential. Without broader outreach, even the most qualified applicants never enter the funnel.

When high-achieving, low-income students don’t apply to selective colleges, institutions lose the very applicants most likely to benefit from their resources. The enrollment disparity is substantial—but fixable. Three underleveraged interventions can help: proactive advising, transparent pricing before application, and sustained outreach during the summer before attending college.

1. Make Annual Counseling Mandatory—and Scalable

A counselor can’t support a student they never meet. However, in many districts, college advising is reactive—available only if students actively seek it out. For high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds, especially in large urban or rural schools, that outreach often never happens.²⁴ The result is silence, not support.

The national average counselor caseload remains 405 students—far exceeding the 250-to-1 maximum recommended by the American School Counselor Association.²⁵ In the schools that serve the most first-generation and low-income students, counselors are often pulled into crisis roles. Postsecondary advising becomes optional, inconsistent, or entirely absent.

This can be fixed with one district-level policy: require at least one-on-one counseling sessions per semester, beginning in Grade 11, as part of their path to graduation. Build the session into course selection meetings to avoid adding administrative burden. Treat it as a default step, not a special service. With the right prompts—postsecondary interest forms, sample college match lists, or financial aid checklists—one meeting can change trajectories.

For under-resourced schools, capacity concerns are real, but scalable solutions already exist. The Carolina College Advising Corps, for example, places full-time advisors in under-resourced high schools.²⁶ States like Texas and California have also implemented virtual college advising call centers—scalable, centralized models that connect students to high-quality guidance without depending on local capacity.²⁷

These models don’t just look promising; they change outcomes. For example, in one randomized trial, high-achieving low-income students who received 10 hours of structured advising during their final year of high school—including support with application planning, college matching, and financial aid—were 8 percentage points more likely to enroll in highly selective institutions, despite having similar academic profiles and test scores as matched peers who did not receive advising.²⁸

2. Clarify Financial Aid Expectations Before Students Apply

Sticker prices aren’t real prices—but that distinction is meaningless if students can’t see the difference upfront. When financial aid information is hidden behind the application process, selective institutions send the message that real costs are unknowable until it’s too late to matter.²⁴ By the time award letters arrive, many qualified students have already excluded themselves based on misleading assumptions.

This is fixable. Institutions can—and should—publish transparent, accessible estimators that demystify net costs early in the decision process. These tools should reflect actual aid patterns by income band, GPA, and family circumstance. They should be prominently displayed, simple to navigate, and free of admissions jargon. No student should need to submit an application just to discover whether a college is financially viable.

The benefits of early financial transparency were demonstrated clearly in the Expanding College Opportunities (ECO) project.²¹ In this study, high-achieving, low-income students received customized packets that translated sticker prices into actual out-of-pocket costs for both selective and local colleges. The materials used plain language to compare financial aid estimates, graduation rates, and retention statistics—without steering students toward any particular school. 

The takeaway: when students are given timely, tailored, and concrete information, they aim higher. The current system doesn’t need more encouragement—it needs more clarity.

3. Prevent Summer Melt with Timely, Low-Burden Interventions

“Summer melt” refers to the well-documented phenomenon, in which students—particularly those from low-income or first-generation backgrounds—are admitted to college, commit to enroll, and then fail to matriculate in the fall. National estimates in the U.S. place the rate between 20% and 40%.²⁹ These students do not change their goals. Instead, they encounter avoidable friction in the weeks following graduation.

Missed paperwork, incomplete financial aid verification, and unclear housing processes—these are the small failures that accumulate. Students often lack a clear point of contact or don’t realize a step was missed until deadlines have passed. Without structured, proactive communication from institutions, the college transition can quickly unravel.³⁰

Evidence shows that light-touch, scalable solutions can help. In one randomized study, students received eight to ten personalized text messages during the summer.³⁰ Each message flagged a specific enrollment task—such as completing course selection, registering for orientation, or confirming housing. The messages were actionable, and students could reply to request help. When they did, a counselor followed up.

The impact was significant: fall enrollment increased by 4–7% points in participating districts. No new departments were launched. No technology overhaul was needed. A consistent stream of reminders—delivered at the right time—was enough to keep students on track.

Universities can support students by providing automatic text sequences that activate once a student confirms enrollment.³⁰ For example, students might receive a series of short, clear prompts in the weeks after confirming their spot—outlining tasks, linking to portals, and offering a number to text back if anything feels confusing. 

With strategic outreach and minimal lift, institutions can help close the gap between acceptance and attendance, particularly for low-income students, who are most vulnerable to summer attrition.

Unfortunately, even the most promising behavioral interventions encounter limits once they collide with structural realities. Mandatory counseling, while powerful in theory, can be interpreted as surveillance if sessions are hurried or framed as compliance rather than guidance. Such perceptions risk eroding trust among the very students the intervention is meant to support. Virtual advising offers scale, yet assumes stable broadband, reliable devices, and digital fluency—conditions that remain unevenly distributed and most fragile among low-income communities.³¹

Funding further complicates implementation. Initiatives that expand advising capacity, preserve enrichment, or build digital hubs all require sustained resources, yet education budgets are notoriously unstable. Programs eliminated during downturns often reappear slowly, if at all.³² Behavioral design can make existing systems more navigable, but it cannot substitute for structural investment. Without long-term commitments from policymakers, even the most effective approaches risk becoming temporary fixes rather than durable pipelines to opportunity.

Systems that aspire to be equitable must be judged by delivery, not intent. Across countries, we see the same pattern: high-achieving students from low-income families are filtered out, not because of limited potential, but because preparation is uneven and support arrives too late. Advanced coursework remains concentrated in better-funded districts. Scholarships go unclaimed because applications are opaque. Summer transitions to postsecondary institutions break down when students lack timely guidance.

Behavioral science points to practical correctives. Defaults can convert eligibility into enrollment by making advanced placement the expected path rather than an opt-in choice. Transparent cost tools, if presented before students apply, dismantle persistent price misconceptions that keep selective colleges out of reach. Low-burden communication during the summer reduces summer melt and helps students follow through on their enrollment plans. These strategies don’t succeed because they push harder. They work because they acknowledge how real people make decisions—under pressure, with limited time, and with constrained information.

At The Decision Lab, we translate these insights into durable policy designs. Our work shows that when feedback loops, thoughtful defaults, and accessible tools are embedded into everyday processes, they create conditions where fairer outcomes become more routine.

Students from low-income families have the drive. What they need now are systems that meet them halfway. We’d love to collaborate on building those systems—systems that spot potential early, reduce barriers by design, and create ripple effects far beyond the classroom.

Let’s build an infrastructure of opportunity that lasts. Reach out to explore what this could look like for your organization.

How Simplifying College Funding Applications for Low-Income Students Increased Financial Aid by 33% 

Filing for financial aid shouldn’t feel harder than filing your taxes—but for many low-income students, it does. This piece unpacks how some simple tweaks made to Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) led to a 40% jump in submissions and a 33% increase in financial aid. What happens when we remove friction instead of asking students to push through it? More financial aid, more enrollment, and more equity.

Unpacking the Pandemic: The Lasting Impact of Education Learning Gaps

The pandemic didn’t hit every student the same way—and the gaps it left didn’t vanish when classrooms reopened. Some students lost months of learning. Others lost years. So how do we design support systems that meet students where they are? This piece explores equity-focused solutions, grounded in behavioral science, to help all children catch up—and move forward.

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