With its newest class, Washington University has finally enrolled enough Pell grant-receiving undergraduates to be ranked second to last out of comparable universities, Chancellor Mark Wrongon announced at a press conference Monday.

The announcement was met with applause and loose hundred dollar bills thrown into the air by the crowd of University donors present. A large “Mission Accomplished” banner, embossed with 24-karat gold, was hung behind Wrongon’s podium for the occasion.

Amanda Punch | Student Life

Chancellor Wrongon stands before an adoring mass of donors. Wrongon announced Monday that the University had finally solved the problem of socioeconomic diversity, not just at Wash. U., but across the entirety of humanity.

“With this new ranking, major socioeconomic operations at the University have ended. In the battle for socioeconomic diversity, Washington University and our donors have prevailed,” Wrongon said.

The chancellor later confirmed that because of this new ranking Washington University would no longer be prioritizing socioeconomic diversity. He added that the University was now a model at which all other schools would marvel.

“We really—to use a colloquialism—hit it out of the ballpark on this one,” Wrongon said. “We’ve truly succeeded in making socioeconomic diversity look easy. Not only did we use federal money to pay for our undergraduate students’ enormous tuition, but we did it without spending any of our enormous endowment.”

When asked about the University’s strategy for increasing Pell grants, Gillian Frieder, vice chancellor for public affairs, said that there were a few initial plans.

“First, we tried to tweet mean things at news outlets that made us look bad, but that approach ultimately ended in a Twitter war between the @WUSTL account and someone named @Internet_Troll101, who called us ‘the worst thing to be associated with St. Louis since that fascist Charles Lindbergh kidnapped his own baby.’ Needless to say, that approach was a bust,” Frieder said.

The University’s subsequent strategy focused on finding a lost amulet—rumored to grant wishes—allegedly buried at the Cahokia Mounds. Provost Bolden Porth was sent after the lamp. The mission was unsuccessful, however, as Porth instead returned with an old empty bottle of Tide detergent.

“You know, the Cahokia Mounds and that big landfill outside of town do look pretty similar,” Porth said in explanation of his blunder.

Frieder said the strategy that was ultimately successful was simple wish fulfillment.

“What it came down to was us saying, ‘It’s not about how many Pell students we actually have, but how many we think we should have,’” Frieder said.

The University constructed a dream board filled with Photoshopped pictures of minorities and low-income families receiving wads of cash from school administrators. At the end of every day, Wrongon would kneel before the board and whisper, ‘Oh, heavenly board of trustees, please fulfill our dream of being more socioeconomically diverse, so that we may finally look good in the press and increase our fundraising goal for ‘Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University.’”

With the incoming freshman class of 2020, Frieder said, that wish has come true.

“We finally have everything we’ve ever wanted. We’re a middle-of-the-road, kind of socioeconomically diverse, private research University. What more could you ask for?” Wrongon noted. “With diversity taken care of, we can finally focus on the important issues, like covering every square inch of this campus in glorious, glorious tulips.”