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: |
|---|---|---|
|
Wofford College
Spartanburg, SC |
21% | |
|
Augustana College
Rock Island, IL |
21% | |
|
Wheaton College
Wheaton, IL |
21% | |
|
Westmont College
Santa Barbara, CA |
21% | |
|
Luther College
Decorah, IA |
21% | |
|
Wellesley College
Wellesley, MA |
21% | |
|
Hendrix College
Conway, AR |
21% | |
|
Barnard College
New York, NY |
21% | |
|
University of Richmond
Univ. of Richmond, VA |
20% | |
|
Williams College
Williamstown, MA |
20% | |
|
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Geneva, NY |
20% | |
|
DePauw University
Greencastle, IN |
20% | |
|
St. Lawrence University
Canton, NY |
20% | |
|
St. John's University
Collegeville, MN |
19% | |
|
Hampden-​Sydney College
Hampden-Sydney, VA |
19% | |
|
Illinois Wesleyan University
Bloomington, IL |
19% | |
|
Lewis & Clark College
Portland, OR |
19% | |
|
Pitzer College
Claremont, CA |
19% | |
|
Union College
Schenectady, NY |
19% | |
|
Centre College
Danville, KY |
18% | |
|
St. Anselm College
Manchester, NH |
18% | |
|
College of Wooster
Wooster, OH |
18% | |
|
Bard College
Annandale on Hudson, NY |
18% | |
|
Pomona College
Claremont, CA |
18% | |
|
Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT |
18% |
