University of Michigan focuses on low-income students, but fewer enroll

Posted by lmonson June 07, 2008 19:51PM

Janee Moore shared books with friends to save money while attending the University of Michigan. She didn't have her own computer until her junior year. And an iPod? Forget it.
Coming to U-M was a more daunting and stressful experience for Moore than for many of her peers, who had financial advantages she didn't.
The university is trying to make the path to U-M easier for students like Moore, but the percentage of undergraduates coming from low-income families dropped in recent years - despite stepped-up recruiting and new scholarships focused on increasing socio-economic diversity.
Similarly, U-M has seen a drop in the percentage of freshmen who make up another group of students the university says it wants to attract: students who are the first in their families to attend college.
Of the undergraduates who went to U-M this past school year, just 12.3 percent received the Pell Grant, the federal grant for the neediest undergraduates. That was a decline from 13.5 percent in the 2004-05 school year.
Of the freshmen who enrolled in fall 2007, 11.4 percent were considered first-generation college students, meaning their parents did not attend or did not graduate from college. That was a decline from 15.7 percent from fall 2004.
Moore, who grew up in Detroit and graduated from U-M this spring, fits into both groups - she received a Pell Grant and she's the first in her immediate family to graduate from college. Her mother worked as a bank teller until becoming ill. Her father works at an auto plant.
She said she chose U-M because it offered her the greatest amount of financial aid out of the schools to which she applied, though the money didn't stretch as far as she would have liked.
"When you don't have the funds to go here and when you're in a minority group, you don't feel like you're part of this mainline U of M experience," said Moore, who is black. "And it's hard knowing you're always competing with people who have unlimited resources and who don't have to work (while in college)."
Moore talked about passing other students studying in the library as she walked to her campus jobs. Not having her own computer meant she didn't always get the last-minute instructions sent out by professors late at night. And she wasn't able to listen to the podcasts professors make of their lectures, which students can review at their leisure.
Still, Moore made it through U-M, with a major in women's studies. She plans to pursue graduate work in public health at Emory University in Atlanta in the fall.
University officials said they're not exactly sure why the percentages of low-income students and students who are first-generation college students are down.
"Our cost scares people away, because, you know, you read how expensive the University of Michigan is," said Pamela Fowler, executive financial aid director. "It's hard for them to reconcile that, yes, we may be more expensive, but we give more financial aid."
Tuition has increased 27 percent for incoming freshmen in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts since fall 2004. Tuition cost $10,447 last academic year; next fall's tuition rate won't be set until this summer. University officials said they've increased financial aid by a greater percentage than the annual tuition increases.
Fowler and other university leaders said U-M is the most affordable public university in the Big Ten and most affordable public university in Michigan, because of the amount of financial aid that is available.
Provost Teresa Sullivan said projections show the downward trend in the percentages may have been reversed, judging by the students who have paid enrollment deposits to reserve a spot in the freshman class that will arrive in the fall. Not all of the students who pay deposits attend, however, so it's too early to say if the university's efforts have paid off.
"I suspect, but I can't prove, that this class will be more diverse inside Michigan than it has been in the past," Sullivan added. "So you're going to see parts of Michigan represented in the class that weren't here before, and it may be that we're hitting some more lower-income parts of Michigan."
In recent years, the university has offered new scholarships to low-income and first-generation college students and stepped up recruiting efforts in an attempt to bolster socio-economic diversity on campus. University leaders have placed personal phone calls to students, urging them to attend U-M.
One of the new scholarships, M-PACT, was first awarded to students who enrolled in fall 2005 and was specifically designed to increase enrollment of low-income students. It replaces some loans with grants for the neediest in-state students.
Beginning in fall 2006, a database of socioeconomic and demographic information purchased from the College Board has been used to help target high schools and neighborhoods that historically haven't sent many students to the university for greater outreach and attention in the application process.
This year, a new recruiting and outreach center was announced and is just getting off the ground.
Some of these efforts were started as ways to maintain campus diversity in response to the November 2006 passage of a state constitutional amendment that banned consideration of race and gender in admissions and financial aid.
Students have also gotten involved in the push for socio-economic diversity. Working with Greg Merritt, director of residence education at university housing, students formed a support group for first-generation college students on campus. The group plans to assist the university in the future with recruiting.
One of the students, Brad Vermurlen, grew up in the Lansing area and graduated with a major in sociology in April. He recalled how he didn't know some of the basics - like how to find a major he liked - that students whose parents had college experience probably already knew.
Vermurlen, whose father is an autoworker for General Motors Corp. and whose mother works for a credit union in Lansing, said he got through the university with the help of friends and professors who were mentors for him.
"For a lot of students, their parents can give them tips like, 'When I was in college I did it like this,'" he said. "For me, I just kind of felt it out."http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/06/university_of_michigan_focuses.html