In 2008, Gutmann made the historic decision to go all-grant in undergraduate financial aid, making Penn one of the largest of only a small number of universities to offer outright grants rather than loans to all aided students, based on need. As a result, it costs students receiving aid 19 percent less to attend Penn today (in inflation-adjusted dollars) than it did at the start of Gutmann’s tenure, nearly 18 years ago. To make this possible, Penn more than tripled its undergraduate aid budget, growing from $84 million to $259 million annually and awarding some $2.6 billion to students over the course of Gutmann’s presidency.

Today, nearly 80 percent of traditional undergraduates leave Penn debt-free and the lives of tens of thousands of students and their families have been transformed for the better. Pioneering initiatives such as Penn First Plus—a comprehensive support system for first-generation and low-income students—propel the success of all students. Applications for admission have grown exponentially in quantity and in every dimension of quality, with a record-breaking 56,333 applications to join the Class of 2025. Penn’s selectivity for the Class of 2005 was 21 percent; it is about 5.7 percent for the Class of 2025. Most meaningfully for increasing educational opportunity, the proportion of students in Penn’s entering class who are low-income, those who are first-generation, and those who identify as minorities all more than doubled over Gutmann’s presidency.