High-Ranking Liberal Arts Colleges That Are Showing the Most Progress in Increasing Their Number of Low-Income Students

Last week JBHE ranked the nation’s most selective liberal arts colleges on their enrollments of low-income students during the 2008-09 academic years. Now we turn to which schools have been making progress in increasing their number of low-income students.

JBHE’s survey shows that over the past two years, 21 of the 30 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges have increased their percentage of low-income students. Carleton College in Minnesota posted the biggest gain from 8.1 percent to 11.2 percent. Haverford, Williams, Grinnell, Amherst, and Vassar all showed gains of at least two percentage points over the past two years.

Nine liberal arts colleges showed declines over the past two years. The schools with the most significant losses were Scripps College, Swarthmore College, and Smith College. But we remind the reader that despite its drop in low-income students, Smith remains the overall leader by a wide margin.

If we take a longer look back over five years, we find that only 13 of the 30 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges have posted gains in their percentages of low-income students. Over the past five years, Williams and Amherst have posted the most significant increases. Scripps, Oberlin, and Wellesley have seen the largest decreases in their percentages of low-income students over the past five years.