Neil Sullivan, the high school's principal, said the proportion of students admitted by the most selective universities had increased somewhat over the last four years, after dipping slightly when the number of A's dropped sharply between 1998 and 2001.
The most selective colleges are also increasing or protecting financial aid: Cornell, Princeton and Vanderbilt, among others, have announced in recent weeks that they will continue plans to replace loans with grants, even as they suspend hiring searches and cut back on capital projects.
Since the 1960s, annual per-pupil spending at the most selective public and private colleges has increased at twice the rate of the least selective colleges.
"It is understandable that some of our elite and most selective universities are not eager to increase significantly the number of degrees they award annually, here or abroad," said Dr. Edward Guiliano, president of the New York Institute of Technology, which offers its degrees in China, Canada, Jordan, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.
Most colleges give some academic merit aid (though some of the wealthiest and most selective schools do not), and the amount has increased over the years as competition for top students grows more fierce.
The 2020 target is challenging, even with the strong foundation of the work done by the Office for Fair Access (Offa) in the past few years, which has seen participation of 18-year olds from the most disadvantaged communities increase by 21percentnt since 2012, and an even greater increase of 25percentnt at the most selective institutions.
And while the number of disadvantaged children going to university has increased, only 2.2% end up at the most selective third of universities, compared with 18.1% of their better-off peers.
It will make it harder to increase the numbers of disadvantaged students at the most selective universities and it will lumber them with massive debts," he said.
From Fig. 10, Co/Al is the most selective catalyst to methane production at lower reaction temperature, while, as the temperature increase the selectivity to methane decrease to reach the lower value 10.15 % at 800 °C.
Most selective universities receive more than 10,000 applications a year.
