Caroline Hoxby, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, has dedicated years of research to finding out why low-income students aren’t applying to colleges that are their academic match. A recent study shows that awareness is the key. Students who received materials from Hoxby’s Expanding College Opportunities Project informing them about the available financial support and the likelihood of attaining a higher-paying job if they attended a selective college were 46 percent more likely to go to a top school than equally strong students who did not receive one.