Recent efforts by private colleges to enroll more low-income students will yield only “marginal” increases compared with the projected rise in the overall number of such students during the next two decades, according to a new paper by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley.

In their paper, “The Poor and the Rich: A Look at Economic Stratification and Academic Performance Among Undergraduate Students in the United States,” John Aubrey Douglass and Gregg Thomson compare the percentage of Pell Grant recipients at a group of selective colleges and universities, a topic that was the subject of special reports by The Chronicle in 2006 and 2008. The researchers then examine the characteristics of low-income students in the University of California system.

Among the findings: The system enrolled a “strikingly high” number of low-income students compared with 24 other selective institutions. In general, those students had only slightly lower grade-point averages than their wealthier peers in various fields.

Looking ahead, the researchers predict that current economic trends may widen existing disparities, and preserve public institutions as the “primary entry point” for low- and middle-income students.

“It is not an exaggeration,” they write, “to say that the health of America’s economy and the character of social stratification will remain dependent on the vibrancy of its public higher-education institutions.” —Eric Hoover