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: |
|---|---|---|
|
Brevard College
Brevard, NC |
42% | |
|
Holy Cross College
Notre Dame, IN |
42% | |
|
Agnes Scott College
Decatur, GA |
42% | |
|
Monmouth College
Monmouth, IL |
42% | |
|
Pacific Union College
Angwin, CA |
41% | |
|
Harrisburg University of Science and Technology
Harrisburg, PA |
41% | |
|
Green Mountain College
Poultney, VT |
40% | |
|
Thomas More College of Liberal Arts
1
Merrimack, NH |
40% | |
|
Virginia Wesleyan College
Norfolk, VA |
38% | |
|
Illinois College
Jacksonville, IL |
38% | |
|
Albright College
Reading, PA |
38% | |
|
College of the Atlantic
Bar Harbor, ME |
37% | |
|
Wisconsin Lutheran College
Milwaukee, WI |
37% | |
|
Ripon College
Ripon, WI |
37% | |
|
Georgetown College
Georgetown, KY |
37% | |
|
Eckerd College
St. Petersburg, FL |
36% | |
|
Fort Lewis College
Durango, CO |
36% | |
|
Lake Forest College
Lake Forest, IL |
36% | |
|
Goshen College
Goshen, IN |
36% | |
|
Whittier College
Whittier, CA |
35% | |
|
Alma College
Alma, MI |
35% | |
|
Hanover College
Hanover, IN |
35% | |
|
Castleton State College
Castleton, VT |
35% | |
|
Lycoming College
Williamsport, PA |
35% | |
|
College of Idaho
Caldwell, ID |
35% |
