"DECREASE IN PELL GRANTS CAUSES ADMISSION OF FEWER LOW-INCOME STUDENTS"
Content in this article is contributed by:
Karin
Fischer,
The Chronicle of Higher Education
A Chronicle analysis of federal Pell Grant data showed a
decrease
in the number of undergraduates attending elite colleges.
Seventy-
five of the wealthiest private colleges in 2006-07
averaged giving
only 13.1 percent of their undergraduates Pell Grants.
Pell Grants
are given to college students from families with annual
incomes of
less than $40,000. In 2004-05, 14.3 percent of
undergraduates at
these colleges received Pell Grants, which have endowments
of over
$500 million.
There was a drop in low-income students attending the 39
best-endowed
public universities from 19.6 percent in 2004-05 to 18
percent in
2006-07.
Efforts have been made by 40-some public and private
institutions
to increase financial aid for low-income students, but the
decline
is still happening. On a good note, Congress has put more
effort
towards improving its study of spending money, and policy
change of
colleges with endowments that are over
$500-million.
Financial need of college students is growing, but will
policy change
be enough to change the makeup of the student body of
these public
and private institutions? Thomas G. Mortenson, a senior
scholar at
the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher
Education,
says he is afraid selective colleges are becoming "class
segregated."
Also Mortenson states, "We have to ask if they’re pulling
their load
when it comes to enrolling needy students."
These efforts will take time, according to administrators
at these
colleges. Two new classes of students were admitted
during the time
period examined by The Chronicle. The 2004–5 academic
year was the
first year they reported on the share of Pell Grant
recipients at colleges.
Even if those two classes had much greater numbers of
students with
Pell Grants, the change to the overall student body would
still be
seemingly small.
"More importantly," says Robert M. Shireman, director of
the nonprofit
Institute for College Access and Success, "we should be
looking at the
trend of wealthy colleges in the context of the college
population as
a whole." For example, between 2004-05 and 2006-07, Pell
Grant’s power
for purchasing stood still and students that needed the
money only went
to two-year or for-profit colleges. And in this case, the
students who
received Pell Grants at all public and private colleges
decreased to
about seven percent.
Amherst, Holy Cross, and Williams Colleges; Princeton
University; and
the Universities of Richmond and Texas at Austin were
among a few colleges
that were surveyed that have made small increases in the
fraction of
low-income students they enroll.
For example, some colleges make it a priority to award
Pell Grants to
low-income students. At Florida State University and
Smith College,
Pell Grants are awarded to a quarter of their students,
35.2 percent
at the University of California at Los Angeles, and for
77.4 percent
at Berea College.
The University of Delaware’s recipients of Pell Grants
declined from 9.8
percent in 2004-05 to 7.3 percent in 2006-07. This
decline was inconsistent
with prior years. In 2006-07 there was not only a decline
in Pell Grant
recipients, but also a decline in the number of students
admitted.
The 2006-07 case with the University of Delaware makes it
hard for
researchers to really study the data of how well colleges
are serving
low-income students. When cases like these happen, only
once in a 5
year term, the data can sometimes be misleading. For
example, students
who are not eligible for Pell Grants, such as adults and
foreign students,
are included in the institutions numbers and could easily
distort the number
receiving the awards.
Colleges and universities have different ways of reporting
how they disperse
the awards. Fourteen percent of students were awarded
Pell Grants in 2006-07
at Pennsylvania State University on the flagship
University Park campus.
Pennsylvania has calculated the Pell percentage as going
to 21 percent of
undergraduates across a multi-campus system.
Sarah E. Turner, an associate professor of education and
economics at the
University of Virginia, says Pell eligibility tends to be
far higher among
non-traditional students than those dependent on their
families for financial
support. Institutions such as the University of
Cincinnati, with a large
amount of non-traditional students, will look far better
using Pell ratios,
even if they possibly don’t provide better job
opportunities for recent high-
school graduates.
Ms. Turner also notes that in some states, colleges will
have higher numbers
of high achieving students that need the money. In such
instances, their Pell
numbers may reflect demographics as much as institutional
policy.
"Using one factor to determine how well a university
serves low-income students
is like trying to diagnose an illness by taking someone’s
temperature," says
Stephen M. Farmer, assistant provost and director of
undergraduate admissions
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"Pell, by itself, is not
enough to make a diagnosis."
Overall, Pell Grant numbers remain more consistent. Even
those who differ over
methodology agree that low-income students continue to be
underrepresented at
elite institutions.
"No, we have not seen transformation change," Ms. Turner
says. "It’s not like …
well, we’ve solved this problem–on to poverty in
Africa."
Time is what it will take to increase numbers with the
competition for high-
achieving, low-income students. Princeton is a prime
example. In 2001, Princeton
announced that it would rid loans for undergraduates and
award grants instead.
When this announcement happened, it took time for the
number of students to
increase, says Robin A. Moscato, the university’s director
of undergraduate
financial aid. Ms. Moscato says the numbers increased
gradually from 6.9
percent then to 10 percent in the current academic
year.
"Colleges have to be more proactive than just implementing
a financial aid
program and waiting for people to show up with application
in hand," says
Donald E. Heller, a professor of education at Pennsylvania
State University
at University Park.
Colleges such as the University of Virginia, Harvard and
Amherst are putting
their efforts toward doing more than just providing more
money. For example,
the University of Virginia hired a social worker to
navigate low-income families
through the student-aid process. Harvard has contacted
community activists
to aid in recruiting students in rural and inner-city
neighborhoods. Amherst
has recently built an addition to its admissions offices
to make room for new
staff members hired to help diversify its student body,
says Thomas H. Parker,
dean of admissions and financial aid.
Due to the credit crunch happening now, Yvonne B. Hubbard,
director of financial
aid services at Virginia, is concerned that recruiting
needy students might be a
challenge with the lack of student loans.
"We’re still fighting the ‘I can’t afford’ it battle," Ms.
Hubbard says. "For
some of these kids, applying to a place like UVA is like
taking a leap of faith."
