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SOURCE: USA TODAY
Low-income students scarce at elite colleges
By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Thomas Jefferson believed that democracy wouldn't work unless poor but worthy students had access to a quality education. So what would he think today about all those SUVs or that shiny black Saab turbo convertible parked near student hangouts at the campus he founded 185 years ago?
The number of students at his beloved University of Virginia who qualify for need-based financial aid has slipped in the past decade, from about a third of undergraduates to a quarter or less. Fewer than 9% are eligible for Pell Grants, a federal aid program that generally kicks in for students with family incomes of $40,000 or less.
Meanwhile, 58% of last year's incoming class reported family incomes of $100,000 or more. One in five reported $200,000 or more; only 2.4% of U.S. households earn that much.
"I'd grown up around middle-class people," says Jade Craig, 20, a third-year Virginia student from Hattiesburg, Miss., who gets academic scholarships, Pell Grants and other need-based aid. "But here, you definitely have the sense that people are wealthy."
Income disparities aren't limited to Virginia. Studies show that rich kids are not only more likely to pursue a bachelor's degree than poor kids, they're also far more likely to land in the nation's most prestigious schools. Nationwide, nine in 10 high school graduates from families earning more than $80,000 a year attend college by age 24, compared with just six in 10 from families earning less than $33,000, says a report by the Century Foundation, a policy institute in Washington.
At the nation's 146 most selective colleges, only 3% of students come from the lowest socioeconomic quarter, it says; 74% come from the top quarter.
And the gap has widened: Wealthy kids are increasingly displacing middle-income students, according to a study of selective institutions by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA....
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