Northwestern is considering a program to encourage more students from lower-income families to attend NU, said Michael Mills, associate provost for university enrollment.

If approved, the program would take the best of these students and give them “a chance to come to Northwestern without incurring any academic debt,” Mills said.

Economic diversity makes NU a “more interesting melting pot,” Mills said, adding that NU doesn’t want to gain a reputation for being unwelcoming to these students.

“Very bright but low-income students are probably the most sought after students in America,” because they are under-represented, he said.

The program would be a “significant commitment but not a million dollars,” he said. He said it is difficult to make exact cost estimates without knowing the number of applicants.

NU belongs to a group called the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, an organization comprising 31 selective private colleges that share similar goals for economic diversity, said Kristine Dillon, the group’s president.

“It’s a real advantage educationally to have a mix of economic experience in the classroom,” she said, but getting there is “quite difficult.”

One difficulty is finding qualified students from this income bracket, Mills added.

“The pipeline doesn’t produce enough (qualified students) and we’re not taking advantage of the number that is out there,” Mills said.

Another challenge for universities is letting limited-income families know about the availability of financial aid.

“There is not a good understanding of how much financial aid is available to needy families,” Dillon said. If a student is the first in his family to go to college, “the concept of financial aid is foreign,” she said.

Some students from limited incomes also fear graduating from college with hefty loans. This aversion will make a student more likely to forgo a high-caliber university like NU in favor of a community college or a local school, Dillon said.

One way universities can attract these students is by relying on grants rather than loans for financial aid packages, she said.

Some schools, such as Harvard University, have summer programs for lower-income students to prepare them for college. A few years ago, Harvard announced that students from families making less than $40,000 a year would be able to attend the school for free.

But NU doesn’t have Harvard’s resources, Mills said.

Even if the program isn’t approved, the university will still try to attract the brightest students from low-income families, Mills said.

Vice President for University Relations Al Cubbage said the program was being considered in budget planning for the following year. The budget will be solidified in April.

Reach Deepa Seetharaman at [email protected].