Despite Promises, Little Progress in Drawing Poor to Elite Colleges “A series of federal surveys of selective colleges found virtually no change from the 1990s to 2012 in enrollment of students who are less well off despite a huge increase over that time in the number of such students going to college,” The New York Times reports.
“Similar studies looking at a narrower range of top wealthy universities back those findings. With race-based affirmative action losing both judicial and public support, many have urged selective colleges to shift more focus to economic diversity. …
It is true that low-income enrollment at some top colleges has been slowly climbing. And some studies suggest that colleges are well intentioned but simply ineffectual in addressing economic diversity. College leaders also point to studies showing that most low-income students with high grades and test scores do not apply to highly selective colleges.
But critics contend that on the whole, elite colleges are too worried about harming their finances and rankings to match their rhetoric about wanting economic diversity with action. …
There are elite colleges, both private and public, with three times as many recipients of Pell Grants — the main federal aid for low-income students — as some of their peers, which critics say shows that the others could be doing more. Prestigious schools like Vassar, Amherst, Harvard and the University of California system have managed to increase low-income enrollment.”
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