Flagships Increase Aid for the Poorest Students, but Not Enough, Report Says

The Chronicle of Higher Education
January 14, 2010
By Beckie Supiano

Public flagship universities are failing to enroll enough low-income or underrepresented-minority students while directing much of their financial aid toward wealthier students, according to a report released Wednesday by the Education Trust.
The report, "Opportunity Adrift: Our Flagship Universities Are Straying From Their Public Mission," is a follow-up to "Engines of Inequality: Diminishing Equity in the Nation's Premier Public Universities," which the research and advocacy group released in 2006.
The new report looks at the distribution of financial aid to full-time, dependent undergraduates at public research-extensive universities, a category that includes but is not limited to the public flagships. Among students who received grants from their colleges, students in the bottom income quintile (in 2007, that would include families making $30,200 or less) were given an average of $4,910 in 2007, compared with $3,982 in 2003 ( measured in 2007 dollars), an increase of 23 percent. Students in the top income group received $4,158 compared with $4,342 in 2003, a decrease of 4 percent.
Despite making gains in institutional aid, the poorest students had an average of $10,445 in unmet need after all college, state, and federal grants were taken into account. The students would have to come up with that money through the Federal Work Study program, other work, and loans. The wealthiest group of students did not, on average, need any grant aid to cover the cost of college at these universities, but still received average grants of $2,025 from all sources.

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