Georgetown University Interim President Robert M. Groves and Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff Joseph A. Ferrara (GRD ’96) denied allegations that Georgetown illegally colluded with other universities to raise prices for students and said the university admitted 30% fewer African-American applicants to the Class of 2028 than the Class of 2027 in an interview with The Hoya.
Groves and Ferrara sat down with The Hoya Jan. 16 to discuss the current state of the university, including university admissions, the ongoing search for a new university president, the state of the Capitol Campus and plans to protect undocumented students. This is the first published interview with Groves since he took over from President Emeritus John J. DeGioia (CAS ’79, GRD ’95) Nov. 21 and the first time The Hoya has been granted a conversation with university leadership since 2023.
Financial Aid Lawsuit
In a Dec. 16 court filing, plaintiffs sued Georgetown and 16 other universities for $685 million in damages, alleging that the universities shared a financial aid methodology that reduced the amount of financial aid they provided prospective students.
Ferrara denied the plaintiffs’ claims and said the university works to admit diverse students annually.
“We strongly disagree with the plaintiffs’ argument in this lawsuit, and we are doing everything we can to vigorously defend ourselves,” Ferrara told The Hoya. “We feel like we have behaved responsibly in our admissions processes.”
“We are trying to compose a class, a diverse class, diversity in all senses of the word every year, socioeconomic diversity, geographical diversity, students who are interested in music, students from Ukraine, students who are athletes, and so that is our aim, in the context of our values,” Ferrara added.
The lawsuit also claims that DeGioia created a “president’s list” of around 80 applicants every year after reviewing their financial background rather than their academic and extracurricular information, writing “Please Admit” on the list and sending it to the admissions office. The university ultimately admitted between 83% and 100% of the students on the president’s list annually.
Ferrara said that DeGioia sought out these students and created any possible list with diversity, rather than wealth, in mind.
“If Jack was mentioning a student to someone, he was never going to try to tell anybody who they should admit,” Ferrara said. “But the focus was not wealth, I can tell you that, and the focus was really on what is going to be the best possible option for Georgetown to build a diverse, vibrant student body. Any list, or any development of people who might be interested in applying to Georgetown, came from that perspective, not from wealth.”
Admissions
Georgetown enrolled fewer students of color than in previous classes in the first admissions cycle without race-based affirmative action. While 49% of students enrolled in the current first-year class, the Class of 2028, identified as students of color, 53% of students admitted to the Class of 2027 identified as students of color.
Groves said that the Supreme Court’s decision to end race-based affirmative action dramatically impacted the university’s admissions of Black students — though ultimately, an increased yield rate meant that only four fewer Black students enrolled in the Class of 2028 than in the Class of 2027.
“Let’s just pick African American applicants, we actually accepted 30% fewer,” Groves said. “We weren’t allowed to know what their race was, but the yield on those accepted applicants was higher than in past years.”
Groves attributed this increased yield rate to decisions to package financial aid based on College Board reports rather than the FAFSA form, which faced backlogs and delays, allowing the university to release financial aid offers earlier, and to reach out to applicants early in the process.
“We packaged financial aid based on the College Board reports on financial need and gave the acceptance and financial aid at the same time,” Groves said. “The second thing that we’ve done is to continue our process of reaching out to applicants to achieve the diversity goals we have, and to convince and to convey that Georgetown may be a place where they can feel like they’re a member of a community that’s supporting them.”
Groves said he is not convinced that this higher yield rate is sustainable — potentially meaning that the university’s next incoming class could have an even lower number of Black students.
“I’m not convinced. This is a constant struggle,” Groves said. “You know what has happened? The external world has changed. Our mission hasn’t changed. Our goals haven’t changed.”
Groves said the university has begun formally considering students’ eligibility for Pell Grants, a federal grant to students demonstrating financial need, in its admissions process. In the Class of 2028, 15% of students are Pell-eligible, while 8% of the Class of 2027 are Pell-eligible, according to Groves.
“The observation that we were leaving on the table some low-income applicants, terrific students, because we didn’t know they were low-income, we were fully need-blind — we repaired that by sending from the financial aid office to the admissions office whether each applicant was or was not Pell-eligible,” Groves said.
Groves said the university will announce several changes to undergraduate admissions practices in the coming weeks. Though Groves and Ferrara discussed potentially modifying its legacy admissions policy, which offers preference to applicants with familial connections to graduates or faculty and staff members, they could not confirm whether the university will consider ending legacy admissions.
“Legacy is one of the things we’re examining, along with other things,” Groves said. “We’re doing a kind of holistic review of everything, all the criteria that we use, because we think it’s time to do that.”
Presidential Transition
Although Groves officially became interim president in November, he and Ferrara have taken charge of the university since DeGioia suffered a stroke in June 2024.
Groves said he wants to ensure the university can communicate with its community across this period of transition.
“We’re committed to making sure there’s communication out to our whole community, not just the community on the Hilltop or downtown, but alumni and parents, so that everybody has as much information as they need to do their work, with assurance that Georgetown is moving ahead with all full steam and the institution is in good hands, hopefully,” Groves said.
Groves said his responsibilities as interim president include ensuring a smooth transition to the next president.
“We want to do everything we can over the coming months, so that hopefully, when a new president is here in July of ’26, they’re ready to roll,” Groves said.
Groves also said he aims to continue DeGioia’s existing initiatives for improvement across Georgetown’s campuses.
“He had put in place a platform for innovation involving growth on the Hilltop Campus and growth on the Capitol Campus, and the board is very explicit to us to say, ‘we want you to push those things forward, because that’s in the interests of the welfare of the institution,’” Groves said.
Presidential Search
Georgetown’s board of directors launched a presidential search immediately following DeGioia’s resignation in November, with board chair Thomas A. Reynolds (GSB ’74) confirming the membership of the presidential search committee Jan. 10.
Both Groves and Ferrara said they will not apply for the presidency.
Groves said he has confidence in the search committee’s work to find a new president.
“It’s very important for all of us to understand that this is the singular, unambiguous responsibility of the board to appoint a president,” Groves said. “We have incredibly strong board leadership, supportive of students and faculty and so on, and so they’re going forward on that.”
Georgetown has never had a female president; only Fr. Patrick Healy, S.J., who served as president from 1873 to 1882, has been non-white, while only DeGioia has served as president without being a member of the Jesuit order.
Groves said that listening sessions across the university’s campus would help the board get a better sense of the characteristics university community members hope to see in the next president.
“It’s a committee of 12 people, so automatically, you realize that to get fulsome input — to answer your question, what are the key attributes in the next president — from all the stakeholder groups, we need something else,” Groves said. “In the coming days and weeks, there’ll be a set of listening sessions so that students have voices. They can express what they care about for the future Georgetown.”
“If we all took this seriously, this would be a gift by us to the future of the institution, and it’s a great moment for all of us to think carefully about the attributes,” Groves added.
Ferrara said the board will look broadly to find a president who can both understand Georgetown and move it forward amid the current landscape of higher education.
“I think they want to have a very wide open look of who are all the candidates out there that could come in and lead Georgetown,” Ferrara said.
Capitol Campus
The university’s Capitol Campus in downtown Washington, D.C., which houses the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Earth Commons, will begin welcoming residential undergraduate students in the fall of 2025, with students in two new degree programs spending their junior and senior years downtown.
Groves said he believes the two new undergraduate programs offered at the Capitol Campus — degrees in public policy and environment and sustainability — will help Georgetown attract students.
“We know that there are students who didn’t apply to Georgetown because we don’t have a public policy undergraduate degree,” Groves said. “We never had a fulsome environmental studies program. So the applicant pool is going to change too over years, as these schools grow.”
Groves acknowledged concerns about reduced student life at the Capitol Campus and said he is prepared for slow growth in the student population.
“I think it’s one of those things where it requires, if you can’t see evidence of it, then it requires imagination about a future that doesn’t yet exist,” Groves said.
“The plan for undergrads is a gradual one, over about a five to six year period. It will start out small by design,” Groves added. “It wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t hit goals on any particular year; if the pattern is different than we’re expecting, then we need to make adjustments.”