I do not believe you can fault selective schools like Smith and Haverford for any lack of lower-income kids applying. Such LACs are very wealthy and can cost the same or even less than a public. The problem is that not just lower-income but many middle-class families have barely heard of them. And with thousands of high schools in a huge country like the USA, they cannot send reps everywhere, and even when reps do go to ordinary public schools, maybe nobody shows up. Selective LACs like ti have smart kids from all over, if they can get them.
For many families the only schools on their radar are the publics and maybe some privates in their home states. They have heard of Harvard and Notre Dame and Stanford, but these are perceived as too expensive, too far, schools only for the brilliant so Junior won’t get in anyway, and the parents are correct. Same parents are often uninformed that there are dozens of great schools, often with merit/financial aid available. That takes time and effort to learn though.
CU123 is correct that here is a ton of info out there on colleges, but there’s a billion tons of other stuff on the internet.