High-Ranking Colleges and Universities Show Little Progress in Increasing Their Enrollments of Low-Income Students

In the 2004-05 academic year, more than 5 million college students received federal Pell Grant awards. More than 20 percent of all Pell Grant recipients are African Americans. Therefore, there are more than 1 million African-American college students who receive a Pell Grant. With the average award of $2,466 for all recipients, the Pell Grant program contributed about $2.5 billion annually to African-American higher education.

In 1976, the first year that Pell Grants were available to all low-income undergraduate students, the maximum award was $1,400. If the maximum award were indexed to the rate of inflation, today the maximum award would be $4,806, about 19 percent higher than the current level. But it must be remembered that the cost of a college education has climbed at a rate far exceeding the nation’s rate of inflation. Thus Pell Grants fall far short of keeping pace with the cost of going to college for low-income students.

(Click on link for chart:) "A Long-Term View of Enrollments of Low-Income Students at the Nation's Highest-Ranked Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges"

The College Board calculates that a Pell Grant covered 35 percent of the total cost of attending a four-year public college or university in 1980. Today the Pell Grant covers slightly more than 23 percent of the total cost of an education at a four-year state college or university.

According to a JBHE analysis of data obtained from the U.S. Department of Education, over the past 20 years only 11 of the nation’s 30 highest-ranked universities have made progress in increasing the percentage of low-income students who are enrolled in their undergraduate programs. The University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at Los Angeles have recorded the biggest gains. In 1983 there were 3,888 students at Berkeley who received a Pell Grant. These low-income students made up 19.7 percent of the student body. By 2004 there were nearly 7,700 Pell Grant recipients at Berkeley. They made up 33.6 percent of the student body.

Similar gains prevail at the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1983 there were 4,385 Pell Grant recipients at UCLA making up 21.5 percent of the student body. In 2004 the 9,278 low-income students at UCLA comprised a whopping 37.2 percent of all undergraduate students. This is the highest level of low-income students among the 30 highest-ranked universities.

Over the 1983 to 2004 period, Brown and Dartmouth were the only Ivy League colleges to post a gain in low-income students. But these gains have been slight. The percentage of low-income students at Brown and Dartmouth is less than one third the level that prevails at UCLA. Harvard has shown a drop in low-income students since 1983. But in recent years Harvard has made impressive progress. In 1998 only 6.4 percent of Harvard undergraduates were from low-income families. Now that Harvard has greatly increased its financial aid to low-income students, the percentage of students receiving Pell Grants at Harvard has nearly doubled to 12.6 percent.

(Click on link for chart:) "Tracking The Progress of the Nation's 30 Highest-Ranked Universities in Educating Low-Income Students Over the Past Decades"

Several universities have posted major declines in low-income students since 1983. At Columbia University in New York City, the number of Pell Grant recipients dropped from 1,425 in 1983 to 1,160 in 2004. This is a decline of nearly 19 percent. At Carnegie Mellon University, Pell Grant recipients dropped from 964 to 685, a decline of almost 30 percent.

At the University of Michigan the number of Pell Grant recipients has been on a roller-coaster ride. In 1983 there were 4,451 students with Pell Grants. This jumped by nearly 40 percent to 6,219 in 1993. But over the next 10 years the number of Pell Grant recipients at the University of Michigan dropped from 6,219 to 3,350, a huge decline of 46.1 percent.

In recent years several of the high-ranking universities — including Harvard, Princeton, the University of Virginia, and the University of North Carolina — have enriched their financial aid plans in an effort to attract more low-income students. The Princeton plan is among the most generous in the nation. At Princeton, students from families with incomes below $50,000 now receive all their financial aid in the form of grants. There are no student loans.

Princeton’s extraordinarily generous financial aid plan has been in effect for six years. Yet, although Princeton has shown improvement in recent years, according to Department of Education Pell Grant data, Princeton still ranks next to last in the percentage of low-income students among the nation’s highest-ranked universities. It appears that a commitment to educate more students from the lower socioeconomic classes of our society requires more than even the most generous financial aid program.

Low-Income Students at the Leading Liberal Arts Colleges

Now we turn to the long-term performance of the nation’s most prestigious liberal arts colleges in educating students from low-income families. Many of these small, highly selective colleges, particularly those dedicated to the education of women, have made great progress in increasing the number of low-income students. But much work remains to be done. Anthony Marx, president of Amherst College, the highly ranked liberal arts college in western Massachusetts, stated the case at commencement ceremonies in the spring of 2004. At that time Marx said, “At our top colleges, only one tenth of our students are drawn from the poorer half of the population, only 3 percent from the bottom quarter. Three quarters of top college students come from the wealthiest quarter of society.”

According to the JBHE analysis of data obtained from the U.S. Department of Education, over the past 21 years only 13 of the nation’s 30 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges have made progress in increasing the percentage of low-income students who are enrolled in their undergraduate programs. In 2004 the five liberal arts colleges with the highest percentages of low-income students were all women’s colleges. Smith College led all liberal arts colleges with low-income Pell Grant recipients making up 25.9 percent of all enrollments. At Mount Holyoke, 20.5 percent of all students received Pell Grants. At Barnard College, Wellesley College, and Bryn Mawr College, Pell Grant recipients were at least 16.3 percent of the total enrollments. The women’s colleges that lead the nation’s highest-ranked liberal arts colleges in educating low-income students have programs encouraging young single mothers to return to school to earn a college education. Undoubtedly, many of these women have low incomes and would qualify for federal Pell Grants.

(Click on link for chart:) "Tracking The Progress of the Nation's 30 Highest-Ranked Liberal Arts Colleges in Educating Low-Income Students Over the Past Decades"

Over the 1983 to 2004 period Smith College posted the largest gain in enrolling low-income students. During the more than two decade period, the percentage of low-income students at Smith rose from 17.4 percent to 25.9 percent. At Mount Holyoke the percentage of low-income students rose from 12.9 percent in 1983 to 20.5 percent in 2004. Wellesley College also posted impressive gains from 11.4 percent in 1983 to 17.0 percent in 2004. The progress made by the 10 other liberal arts colleges that showed improvement was far more modest.

Overall, 17 of the 30 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges showed a decline in low-income students in the 1983 to 2004 period. And several liberal arts colleges posted major declines in low-income students since 1983. At Washington and Lee University the percentage of low-income students dropped almost in half from 8.3 percent to 4.3 percent. At Macalester College in Minnesota the percentage of low-income students decreased from 21.8 percent in 1983 to 12.5 percent in 2004.

The general public is under the impression that the elite liberal arts colleges in the United States consistently turn in an outstanding performance in educating low-income students. And the glossy brochures and other marketing tools these schools offer tend to confirm the belief that huge amounts of scholarship funds assure an economically balanced student body. But as we see from the Pell Grant data, these schools educate for the most part the wealthy and upper-income students. Tuition and comprehensive fees averaging over $40,000 a year tend to confirm this result.

(Click on link for chart:) "Enrollment of Low-Income Students at the Nation's Black Colleges and Universities"

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