A new study, based on millions of anonymous tax records, shows that colleges are even more economically segregated than previously understood.
This isnāt meant to sound rude, but why is it a private collegeās responsibility to create a class of economically diverse students?
I believe the elite and Ivy plus schools are doing what they can by offering amazing financial aid packages as well almost being need blind.
In that article, you can add colleges of your choice to the tables to see how they compare.
Perhaps of more concern in terms of public policy is how well public universities serve students from all levels of family income background. For example, the students at Michigan and Virginia skew wealthier than that of most state flagships, despite their relatively good financial aid. Penn State, despite its notoriously poor financial aid, somehow gets a fairly typical percentage (for a state flagship) of students from middle and lower income backgrounds (though high levels of student loan debt are the likely consequence).
However, most of their admissions criteria and processes indirectly favor those from high income backgrounds, even though they may be need blind for individual applicants.
@ucbalumnus how could the admissions criteria be edited to create an equal playing field for all students?
Nothing new here. I think all expensive private schools have catered to the rich ruling class and not the peasant class. I do like the attempt to quantify it though. Thanks for sharing. Makes for some fun research.
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Exactly. Why should we care that privates can be heavily full pay?
I just want to point out again just what a good deal the CUNY system is. At least three of the 10 schools with the highest levels of social mobility are CUNY schools (did I count that right?)
- Cheap tuition
- Excellent education
- Graduate with zero debt
- Has an amazing array of alumni, from the arts to the sciences and business in between.
Here are some ways that admission criteria and processes can affect the SES distribution of the matriculating frosh:
- Emphasis on test scores. Test scores tend to correlate well to SES.
- More application items (e.g. SAT subject tests, recommendations, CSS Profile, interview). Students at high SES schools are more likely to see a well run college admissions pipeline and counselors well versed in college admissions, including at colleges that want all of these things. Students at low SES schools may encounter overworked counselors who are too busy with keeping students from dropping out, etc. to keep them on track to applying to colleges other than the local state university and community college.
- Recommendations. Counselors and teachers at high SES schools are more likely to have had plenty of practice writing good recommendations.
- Interview. Most alumni interviewers are high or upper middle SES, so a low SES student may need additional practice to make sure that the interview is mutually comfortable (which a high SES student is more likely to just fit in with the interviewer).
- CSS Profile. Some low SES students may be suspicious of a financial aid form that one has to pay for. Also, divorced uncooperative parent situations can screen out students who need financial aid if the college needs the non-custodial parent information.
- Legacy preference. Since legacies have college graduate parents, they are more likely to be from the higher SES ranges.
- First generation preference. Tends to skew toward lower SES.
- How extracurriculars are viewed. What is more impressive, being on a traveling club team in an expensive sport, or working after school at a job to help support one's family?
- Early decision. Students who need to compare financial aid offers are less likely to want to apply early decision.
- Early action. Less of a deterrent against low SES applicants than early decision, but favors those at high SES high schools with well run college admissions pipelines that remind students to get stuff done early.
- Essay prompts. Some can be easier for high or low SES applicants to write good essays about. For example, an essay prompt about overcoming adversity tends to be something that low SES applicants are more likely to have good stories to write about.
Of course, colleges designing their admission processes presumably take into account the effects of each criterion on the SES distribution of the matriculating frosh, since they have a financial aid budget to meet. I.e. they are need aware for the entire class, even if they are need blind for individual applicants.
@Dustyfeathers 5 of the ten schools are CUNY schools. I agree with you CUNY is one of the best deals going. Itās one of the few places where you can choose commute from home and work your way through college.
@Jpgranier wrote:
I believe the elite and Ivy plus schools are doing what they can by offering amazing financial aid packages as well almost being need blind.
I think once the school receives the application they do right by these kids. But a big issue is many low income students donāt apply as they think they never will be able to afford it. They are unaware or donāt really know what āneed blindā means, are unaware or donāt know how to pursue merit aid, and they generally donāt have the support at school or at home to navigate the admissions and financial aid process.
Schools, both high schools and colleges, can do a much better job at outreach to low income kids.
Interesting list, thanks. Some of the tippy top schools do OK on that list. Harvard ābetterā (by this measure) than Yale, Amherst better than Williams (OK, theyāre close, but I had to), Vassar blowing past most elites at 126ā¦fun to play with.
I note the list isnāt about who is full pay, itās about the % of ā1% incomeā families and the % of ābottom 60%ā families. Someone could make a full pay vs FA list (that data is certainly out there) or a ātop 5%ā vs ābottom 50%ā list or whatever and get a somewhat different list.
I think itās useful to see who your peers are. If you are a family that makes under $65K (the cutoff for bottom 60%), does it mean anything that only 6% of your class is also in that group, vs maybe 24% (Amherst) or 27% (tOSU)? Maybeā¦itās one more data point.
About 1 out of 5 students at many top universities come from families with an annual income above $450K. Cannot NYT add a few more columns to their interactive table in addition to top 1% vs bottom 60%: top 5%, 10%, 20% and 30%? Better yet, show us the % of applicants in each group? Then we can see the differential acceptance rates by family income.
Is this Americans only or are they counting Internationals?
Iād expect Internationals at almost all schools to skew towards full-pays (as all but 6 schools are not need-blind for Internationals and somebody has to pay for the education of those receiving Pells).
This is cool! Great chart and great work NYT. Interesting - they say top 1% is 645K and upā¦ I thought it was a lot less than that.
Note: If you click into the college name, you get even more great information. Iām super impressed with the NYT graphics. Pretty good for a āfailing newspaperā 
@suzyQ7 I thought so tooā¦ Perhaps thatās the top 1% of families who have had children in college?
http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/income-rank/ Iāve found a consistent mid 400s national top 1% on almost every site Iāve seen on google.
I enjoyed the graphics a lot too!
^ Possibly household vs. individual income?
@eiholi click on the school it is all there.
My kidās school for example:
āWhat kind of students attendā
Median family income $158,200
Average income percentile 78th
Share of students from top 0.1% 4.4%
ā¦from top 1% 21%
ā¦from top 5% 41%
ā¦from top 10% 51%
ā¦from top 20% 60%
ā¦from bottom 20% 4.7%
ā¦and a lot more.
Thank you @suzyQ7 I missed that!
This one is fascinating:
Edit: @suzyQ7 Wow! All this info mustāve taken ages to find. Thanks for thinking to click on the names :))
One major reason Michigan skews wealthier is that it doesnāt meet full need for international and OOS students, who jointly comprise about 42% of the undergraduate student body. That FA policy effectively screens out most low- and middle-income non-residents.
But thatās not the only factor. Michigan also draws a disproportionate share of its in-state students from Oakland and Washtenaw Counties, the wealthiest counties in the state with the best schools and the most high-performing students. Nothing wrong with serving your stateās top-performing students, but I think they could do more to reach out to other corners of the state.
I donāt agree, however, that the principal public policy concern is with public universities. Private colleges and universities are lavishly rewarded with favorable tax treatment as well as more direct forms of public subsidies. The justification for this is that we think they provide benefits to the public at large. But if in fact they primarily provide private benefits that privilege the already-privileged, then I think itās time to rethink those public subsidies, including favorable tax treatment. If they feed at the public trough, they should be expected to provide public benefits. If they want to go truly private and forego public subsidies (including privileged tax treatment), then I would agree, itās nobodyās business who they serve.
This article is part of a much broader study, part of which looks at income mobility; for example, what percentage of graduates move up a couple of deciles in the income distribution upon graduation. So to speak.