Economic Diversity National Liberal Arts Colleges
Economic diversity has received growing attention in higher education, particularly at elite schools that haven't traditionally enrolled large numbers of low-income students or students from low-income families. This table shows the percentage of undergraduates receiving federal Pell grants for low-income students.
The proportion of students on Pell grants, which are most often given to undergrads with family incomes under $20,000, isn't a perfect measure of an institution's efforts to achieve economic diversity: A college might enroll a large number of students just above the Pell cutoff, for instance, and percentages at public universities may reflect the wide variation from state to state in the number of qualified low-income students.
Still, many experts say that Pell figures are the best available gauge of how many low-income undergrads there are on a given campus. Pell grant percentages were calculated using 2010-2011 school year data on the number of Pell grant recipients at each school collected by the U.S. Department of Education and given to U.S. News and fall 2010 total undergraduate enrollment collected from the colleges themselves by U.S. News.
| Save | School | Percent of undergraduates receiving Pell grants: |
|---|---|---|
|
Lane College
Jackson, TN |
97% | |
|
Talladega College
1
Talladega, AL |
91% | |
|
Rust College
Holly Springs, MS |
89% | |
|
Tougaloo College
Tougaloo, MS |
89% | |
|
Dillard University
New Orleans, LA |
88% | |
|
Allen University
Columbia, SC |
87% | |
|
Amridge University
Montgomery, AL |
85% | |
|
Berea College
Berea, KY |
85% | |
|
Johnson C. Smith University
Charlotte, NC |
84% | |
|
Savannah State University
Savannah, GA |
83% | |
|
Stillman College
Tuscaloosa, AL |
82% | |
|
Claflin University
Orangeburg, SC |
78% | |
|
Pine Manor College
Chestnut Hill, MA |
77% | |
|
Doane College
Crete, NE |
75% | |
|
Bennett College
Greensboro, NC |
73% | |
|
Bloomfield College
Bloomfield, NJ |
71% | |
|
Simpson University
Redding, CA |
71% | |
|
Xavier University of Louisiana
New Orleans, LA |
65% | |
|
Kentucky State University
Frankfort, KY |
65% | |
|
Fisk University
Nashville, TN |
63% | |
|
Bay Path College
Longmeadow, MA |
59% | |
|
Life University
Marietta, GA |
58% | |
|
William Peace University
Raleigh, NC |
55% | |
|
SUNY College–Old Westbury
Old Westbury, NY |
54% | |
|
University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma
Chickasha, OK |
52% |
