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University of Wisconsin–Madison
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty

Tag: Financial aid

Top Colleges and Low-Income Students

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Efforts to recruit poor students lag at some elite colleges, By Richard Pérez-Peña, July 30, 2013, New York Times: “With affirmative action under attack and economic mobility feared to be stagnating, top colleges profess a growing commitment to recruiting poor students. But a comparison of low-income enrollment shows wide disparities among the most competitive private colleges. A student at Vassar, for example, is three times as likely to receive a need-based Pell Grant as one at Washington University in St. Louis…”

 

Top Colleges and Low-Income Students

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Better colleges failing to lure talented poor, By David Leonhardt, March 16, 2013, New York Times: “Most low-income students who have top test scores and grades do not even apply to the nation’s best colleges, according to a new analysis of every high school student who took the SAT in a recent year. The pattern contributes to widening economic inequality and low levels of mobility in this country, economists say, because college graduates earn so much more on average than nongraduates do. Low-income students who excel in high school often do not graduate from the less selective colleges they attend…”

College Graduation Gap – Kentucky

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College graduation gap widens for low-income Kentuckians, By Linda B. Blackford, July 9, 2012, Lexington Herald-Leader: “More Kentuckians are getting college degrees, but a troubling trend has emerged in who receives them. According to a new report, the gap between graduation rates for low-income college students and moderate- to high-income students jumped 8 percentage points between 2008 and 2010. In those two years, the graduation rate of low-income Kentucky students fell from 46 percent to 35 percent, according to an annual accountability report from the Council on Postsecondary Education. In comparison, the graduation rate of moderate- to high-income students dropped four percentage points, from 57 percent to 53 percent. The gap between graduation rates for rich and poor students increased from 10 percentage points to 18. The gap is connected to a bad economy, higher tuition rates and less state aid, and it’s a big problem, according to one expert on the economy and higher education. . .”