<p>The new Washington Monthly ranking came out a few weeks back. What is disturbing to me is that it shows that only 6% of Tulane students receive Pell Grants. That is the lowest number of the 100 colleges reviewed in the National Universities category!</p>
<p>This is concerning to me as the parent of a student who plans to apply in 2013. S2 may very well be a Pell Grant recipient. Does Tulane select against low income students? I thought Tulane was known for great aid overall. But is it just merit aid that they are known for and not need-based?</p>
<p>I do know they have the new Weatherhead scholarship coming out but it sounds like this will require that applicants show a heavy amount of community service work. S2 has dedicated 10 years and around 500 hours to a performance related volunteer activity. But it's not as if he has been working in the inner city feeding the poor.</p>
<p>I don’t think Tulane selects against low income students, but even with a generous need-based scholarship and federal aid, the loan portion of the financial-aid package may be more than low income students are willing to take on. My D’s stats were not quite high enough for merit-based aid at Tulane, and most of her volunteer hours were at college and community theatres (not always performance, but not feeding the poor either). She is Pell eligible and recieved a Tulane need-based scholarship, but had to think long and hard about the loans. </p>
<p>Let’s face it, if you can get accepted at Tulane you probably qualify for merit money somewhere. I would hazard a guess that many Pell eligible students choose those schools where the competition for merit-based aid is a little less keen. As my D puts it “Everyone here is one of the smart kids!”</p>
<p>I can only speculate as to the correlation I am postulating, but there well may be a relationship between the Pell Grant rate and the fact that Tulane is A) an expensive private university and B) that it has more students from over 500 miles away than any other school. Separately neither of these might have been as big a factor, but together when you add what dfunckmom said together with the cost of travel and the possible reluctance of many of these students to travel far from home, it might explain it. Expensive schools that are closer to more major population centers might have less of an issue in this regard, since research has shown that people from the “lower” socioeconomic groups tend to stay closer to home.</p>
<p>Tulane is need-blind (unlike Wash U for example) and so I don’t think they are selecting against anyone based on economics. Still it is difficult for many to afford, even with generous aid, especially these days.</p>