Most of the nation’s top-ranking universities and liberal-arts colleges have seen both short- and long-term declines in the share of their students who come from low-income families, according to an analysis conducted by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.

The Journal’s findings echo the conclusions of a 2006 Chronicle analysis of data from colleges with endowments of $500-million or more. That study found that Pell Grant-eligible students were much less represented on such campuses than might be expected given their share of the population.

Of the 30 prestigious universities examined by the Journal, 20 saw a decline from 1983 to 2006 in the percentage of their students receiving need-based federal Pell Grants. The short-term trend was even more unfavorable, with 27 of 30 showing a decline in the share of their students with Pell Grants.

Low-income students fared only marginally better at the 30 prestigious liberal-arts colleges examined by the Journal. Only a third of those colleges had increased the share of students who were low-income from 1983 to 2006, and all but four had experienced declines in their low-income enrollments in the 2004-6 period.

Some institutions saw declines in their low-income enrollments even after pumping large sums of money into new programs geared toward the needy. “Contrary to what one might expect, it appears that there is no strong correlation between the generous new fiscal measures and success in bringing low-income students to the campus,” the Journal found. “The only sure conclusion is that money alone will not do the job.” —Peter Schmidt