Elite Colleges Lag in Serving the Needy

The institutions with the most money do a poor job of reaching the students with the least

Related materials

Table: Enrolling Needy Students: How the Wealthiest Colleges Perform

Text: Colleges that succeed in attracting needy students

Article: Well-Heeled U. of Virginia Tries to Balance Access With Prestige

Article: At Smith College, a Mission to Serve the Underserved

Article: A Matchmaker for Elite Colleges

Archive: View previous articles from The Chronicle's occasional series on the haves and have-nots in higher education

Forum: Join an online discussion about the growing economic divide in higher education.

Colloquy: Read the transcript of a live online discussion with Anthony W. Marx, president of Amherst College, about whether elite colleges are doing enough to recruit and retain needy students.

Printer friendly	E-mail article	Subscribe	Order reprints
	Discuss any Chronicle article in our forums
Latest Headlines The Chronicle's Almanac, 2008-9 This special report features national and state-by-state data on colleges and universities, as well as regional profiles of the issues facing academe across the country. Mountain West Colleges Bank on Energy Boom Mixed Fortunes for the Pacific West Higher-Education Scholar Named General Secretary of AAUP Purdue Punishes Professor Who Led Disputed Fusion Experiment Professors Use the Democratic Convention as a Teaching Tool Campaign U. Blog: Continuing Coverage From Denver Tech Therapy: Know How Much Technology Costs? Probably Not.

By KARIN FISCHER

In 1940, James Bryant Conant, then president of Harvard University, laid out his vision of an egalitarian society, a classless culture based on educational opportunity, not chance of birth.

The nation had the duty "to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life," Mr. Conant said in the speech at the University of California.

But more than six decades after Mr. Conant — who established scholarships to bring bright, needy students to Harvard — articulated his ideals, just 8.1 percent of Harvard's 9,500 undergraduates receive federal Pell Grants, which are awarded to students from families with annual incomes of less than $40,000.

Harvard is certainly not alone in its relatively small share of students from modest means. Today the nation's wealthiest colleges and universities, those with endowments of $500-million or more, serve only a small proportion of low-income students, a Chronicle analysis of federal Pell Grant data for the 2004-5 academic year shows.

Just 14 percent, on average, of the undergraduates at the country's 59 wealthiest private colleges were Pell Grant recipients.

On the flagship campuses of the 31 best-endowed public universities, they averaged 20 percent. In the same year, nearly one-third of students at all four-year public and private colleges received Pell Grant aid.

The socioeconomic stratification of the nation's wealthiest and most selective campuses has alarmed many higher-education observers, who question why those institutions, with their substantial resources, have not done a better job of enrolling students with the least. In a Chronicle survey last year, presidents of four-year colleges said low socioeconomic status should play the greatest role in admissions decisions after academics, even more than other factors, such as race and ethnicity, legacy status, or athletic ability.

College leaders are beginning to act. In the last few years, some two dozen top public and private colleges, including Harvard and Princeton Universities and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have announced efforts to expand financial aid available to low-income students and to more actively recruit them. In September, officials from many of those institutions will meet at Chapel Hill to compare practices and discuss how to measure the progress of their programs.

The efforts have critics, who question whether the plans are more symbol than substance. They have done little so far to alter the composition of the student bodies of the nation's elite institutions.

Even so, many observers argue, the simple act of revamping financial-aid policies conveys an important message from the top colleges.

"Our elite institutions are the signal of whether we are on track in our intention to be an equal-opportunity country," says Robert M. Shireman, director of the Institute for College Access and Success, a nonprofit organization that works to improve educational opportunity.

Crowded Out

Over the last three decades, most four-year colleges have been steadily losing their share of financially needy students to two-year and for-profit colleges. But the statistics on low-income students are particularly stark at the nation's most prestigious institutions.

At a dozen of the wealthiest private colleges — including Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania — Pell Grant recipients make up less than 10 percent of undergraduates, the Chronicle analysis found.

At some well-to-do public institutions, the situation is no better. Just 7.6 percent of University of Virginia students received Pell Grants in 2004-5, while at the University of Delaware, 9.8 percent of undergraduates received the grants.

There are some bright spots, of course. Pell Grant recipients made up 25.9 percent of Smith College's student body. They accounted for 25 percent at the University of Washington, 37.2 percent at the University of California at Los Angeles, and 39.4 percent at the University of Cincinnati.

Some researchers caution against relying on Pell Grant data as leading indicators of how well colleges are serving low-income students. They warn that taking a once-a-year snapshot can be misleading.

For example, an institution with a relatively high midyear transfer rate could show a higher percentage of Pell Grant recipients than a college with low transfers. Extensive adult-education programs or large numbers of foreign students, who are not eligible for Pell Grants, could skew a university's figures downward because both often count in undergraduate enrollment totals.

Demographics can also be critical, especially for public universities, which often are required by law to draw substantial portions of their student bodies from within the state, says Sarah E. Turner, an associate professor of education and economics at the University of Virginia.

For example, in Virginia 11 percent of high-school students from families earning $35,000 or less scored a 1200 or higher on the SAT in 2000, compared with 17 percent in California. So even if the University of Virginia and UCLA had identical admissions and financial-aid policies, Virginia would probably enroll a lower share of needy students, Ms. Turner argues.

Thomas G. Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, acknowledges that Pell data are not perfect but says they remain the best tool for comparing institutions nationally.

"Any way you calculate it," says Mr. Mortenson, "you're not going to find poor kids at elite colleges."

Other studies, focusing on a smaller sample of top colleges, bear out Mr. Mortenson's claim. One analysis of students at 19 elite colleges, led by William G. Bowen, president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, found that only 6 percent are the first in their families to attend college, while a mere 11 percent are from families with incomes in the bottom income quartile, $35,000 or less.

Another study, for the Century Foundation, paints an even bleaker picture: Just 3 percent of students at the top 146 colleges came from the bottom income quartile, compared with 74 percent from the top income bracket, with incomes of $95,000 or above.

New Attention

Financial-aid experts blame the lack of economic diversity at elite colleges on several recent trends. The buying power of the Pell Grant has deteriorated and now covers only about 15 percent of the cost of attending a private four-year college. At public universities, students are being asked to bear a larger share of the price tag as state financial support diminishes. And as college-going rates increase, the wealthiest and most prestigious institutions have become even more selective, crowding out needy students, who are less likely to attend academically competitive high schools or earn top SAT scores.

"The dirty little secret is that low-income students are even more underrepresented than underrepresented minorities, and no one even seemed to know," says Richard D. Kahlenberg, a senior fellow with the Century Foundation.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in two landmark affirmative-action cases in 2003, backing the limited use of race in admissions, allowed higher-education leaders to begin the discussion about the class divide on college campuses without worrying it would undermine their case on race, Mr. Kahlenberg says.

The Supreme Court, he says, "opened the door for people to pay attention to the issue of class inequality."

But some question the real value of sending poor kids to rich colleges. "You're not going to learn English better at Harvard," says George C. Leef, director of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a higher-education research organization in North Carolina. "You're not going to learn calculus better. In a competitive economy, what you earn depends on your productivity, not your credentials."

A 1999 study of the earnings of those who were accepted by colleges with high average SAT scores but ended up attending less-selective institutions determined that students who turned down the elites and graduated from the less-selective colleges actually earned more money than graduates of the elite colleges.

But the study, by Alan B. Krueger, an economist at Princeton, and Stacy Berg Dale, a researcher at the Mellon Foundation, found that one group of students benefited financially from attending the more-selective colleges — students from low-income families.

Modest Gains

So far the achievements of the fledgling financial-aid programs at top colleges have been modest. Last fall the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill enrolled 351 students — about 10 percent of the freshman class — in its program, dubbed the Carolina Covenant, which eliminates loans for students with family incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $40,000. By comparison, the previous fall, Chapel Hill enrolled 306 freshmen under the program, but at the time it only included students at 150 percent of the federal poverty line.

At Princeton, the share of Pell Grant recipients among undergraduates increased from 6.5 percent in 1997-98 — the year before the university replaced loans with grants for students whose families made less than $40,000 — to 7.3 percent the following year. The average proportion of Pell Grant recipients at the university has held steady since then at 7.5 percent, among the lowest of all wealthy institutions.

Higher-education analysts say it is difficult to determine the success of programs designed to increase socioeconomic diversity on campuses when most institutions have simply said they want to raise low-income enrollment, rather than set measurable goals.

"If they haven't set a goal, it leaves it kind of misty," says Donald E. Heller, an associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University at University Park who studies financial-aid trends. "They can just declare success at any time and go home."

The majority of the programs have focused on bulking up financial aid — and on making sure needy students understand what assistance is available.

At Harvard the financial-aid budget has increased 65 percent over the last six years, to $90-million. But when university officials conducted a focus group with low-income students, officials realized that even the students who were enrolled did not clearly understand the financial-aid resources available to them, says Sally C. Donahue, the university's director of financial aid.

The recognition that Harvard "needed to simplify the message" led university officials to decide, in 2004, to eliminate contributions from parents for all students from families with incomes of $40,000 or less, Ms. Donahue says (that threshold was recently increased to $60,000).

Mr. Bowen, the Mellon Foundation president, says the policies at Harvard and elsewhere have an important "announcement effect" because they send the message that students can afford to attend wealthy and prestigious colleges, even if they come from low-income homes. But, he adds, expanding financial-aid programs is not enough to enroll more low-income students at top colleges.

"It's a function of their applicant pool, pure and simple," says Mr. Bowen, noting that students from the top income quartile are six times as likely as those from the bottom quartile to end up in the "credible pool" for admissions to elite institutions.

Even if needy students overcome barriers to excel academically, they have no edge over their more privileged peers, Mr. Bowen and other researchers have found. By contrast, a minority student is 28 percent more likely to be admitted than an otherwise identical student. For an athlete, the preference is 30 percent, and for the child of an alumnus who applies early, 20 percent.

Mr. Bowen, a former president of Princeton, has called on colleges to give preferences to socioeconomically disadvantaged students. "I'm not a quota person," he says, "but I think a little sensitivity is necessary."

Admissions preferences for low-income students do resonate with the public. Sixty-five percent supported the concept in a 2003 Newsweek poll.

Still, many college leaders have hesitated to embrace class-based affirmative action out of concern it could lower their institutions' academic profile for college rankings.

Advocates for poor students say those worries are unfounded, pointing to institutions like the University of California at Los Angeles, which enrolls large numbers of needy students while maintaining its national standing. (U.S. News & World Report ranked UCLA No. 25 among national universities last year.)

One exception among college leaders is Anthony W. Marx, president of Amherst College, who has advocated increasing admissions by about 20 slots per class at the 1,640-student college to enroll a greater share of low-income students.

Mr. Marx says he is convinced Amherst can improve its socioeconomic diversity without sacrificing academic firepower by more aggressively identifying and recruiting academic stars from disadvantaged high schools and low-income areas.

"There's a wrong way to do this, and that's by lowering academic standards," Mr. Marx says.

He concedes the costs — to increase the financial-aid budget and to hire more professors to maintain student-to-faculty ratios — will be significant. On average, it takes $1-million in endowment funds to support each full-aid student, he says.

Few institutions have the financial resources to engage in a "college-aid arms race," Mr. Marx acknowledges.

Elite colleges like Amherst, he says, have a responsibility to lead on this issue. A failure to do so could end up intensifying class divisions and stymieing social mobility.

"We're concerned where we see opportunity faltering and talent lost," Mr. Marx says. "It's morally wrong, and it's practically wrong."