This past year was a mixed bag for access and equity in higher education. Both certainly remained a major focus, with federal, state, and, increasingly, local leaders pushing colleges not only to let students of all kinds in but also to help them succeed. New groups—like the National Coalition for College Completion—joined those already focused on improving student outcomes. And dozens of reports arrived lamenting the state of affairs and outlining the path forward.
But progress seemed to go two steps forward, one step back. Federal data released last year showed that the share of students receiving financial aid had increased. About 79 percent of first-time, full-time undergraduates seeking degrees or certificates received financial aid in the 2008-9 academic year, up from 76 percent in the previous year. About 51 percent of those students took out loans, and about 40 percent received a Pell Grant, up from 38 percent in the 2007-8 academic year.
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The increase is no doubt a reflection of the recession, which pushed down income and pushed up aid applications. But how much of the change can be attributed to colleges recruiting more low-income students? A number of colleges and universities—particularly selective ones with substantial endowments—have been making a concerted effort to enroll more needy students. Maybe that, too, pushed the needle?
Perhaps. But among the nation’s 50 wealthiest colleges, any gains at one place in enrolling the poorest students have been offset by losses elsewhere. A recent Chronicle analysis of data from the Education Department found that at the wealthiest institutions the share of undergraduates receiving federal Pell Grants, which go to financially needy students, has remained relatively flat in the past five years.
Just under 15 percent of the undergraduates at the country’s 50 wealthiest colleges received Pell Grants in 2008-9, the most recent year for which national data are available. That percentage hasn’t changed much from 2004-5, around the time that elite institutions focused their attention on the issue. And Pell Grant students are still significantly less represented at the wealthiest colleges than they are at public and nonprofit four-year colleges nationwide, where grant recipients accounted for roughly 26 percent of students in 2008-9.
Many experts hypothesized that these elite colleges are simply competing with one another for a small group of low-income students rather than increasing the number of students who are willing to consider selective colleges. “The colleges are fishing in the same pool,” Christopher N. Avery, a professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, who is studying the college-selection process of students in Virginia, told The Chronicle. “The goal has to be expanding the pool of students who are applying, but that’s very hard to do.”
Others, including many of the colleges analyzed, said there hasn’t been adequate time to see the full results of their new aid policies and recruiting efforts. The same could be said of another major effort—the Achieving the Dream project, which seeks to transform community-college outcomes, particularly for students in developmental courses. The project has backing from the two of the biggest players in the higher-education sphere; it was created by the Lumina Foundation for Education and has received substantial financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But the first major analysis of its effect on developmental education showed few changes in student outcomes. The report did find significant cultural changes at the colleges that were studied, including a greater focus on collecting and using data to inform decisions about curriculum and student support services.
The analysis focused on the first colleges to join the project—when promising practices weren’t so well defined—and leaders expect subsequent analyses to show larger gains.
More broadly, last year didn’t bring good news on graduation rates, which are essentially holding steady.
A Chronicle analysis of nearly 1,400 four-year institutions found that their median graduation rate increased by about two percentage points, to about 53 percent, from 2003 to 2008. And one-third of the colleges reported lower graduation rates for the six-year period ending in 2008 than for the one ending in 2003. The rate dropped at nearly 500 four-year institutions between those years. Among colleges where graduation rates were below average in 2003, a similar pattern of slow growth and some declines also held.
Many of the colleges contacted by The Chronicle said competing priorities and changing student demographics were major contributors to lagging rates, and they described renewed efforts to improve. Those, of course, will take time.
