With elite colleges under growing pressure to enroll more low-income students, the University of Chicago is taking a series of rare steps to make applying faster, simpler and cheaper, and to make studying there more affordable.

The package of measures, to be announced Wednesday, includes several that are highly unusual, like eliminating the expectation that low- and middle-income students take jobs during the academic year, guaranteeing them paid summer internships after their first year in college and providing them career counseling beginning in that first year.

“This is all part of a strategy to create a common and equal platform for all students,” for access to the university and “to be successful once they’re here,” said John W. Boyer, the dean of the undergraduate college.

The effort, to be phased in over five years, will mean significantly more spending on some students, and even more costs if the university succeeds in raising the number of low-income students. Mr. Boyer said he could not cite an overall price, but noted that one goal of the university’s coming five-year fund-raising campaign was to raise $150 million to $200 million for financial aid.