Publications About Access to Success

In “Priced Out: How the Wrong Financial-Aid Policies Hurt Low-Income Students,” The Education Trust demonstrates how much low-income students must stretch to pay for college, even after all sources of grant aid are taken into account.

The report finds that just five of nearly 1,200 four-year colleges and universities have student bodies that are at least 30 percent low-income and offer low-income students a reasonable chance at a bachelor’s degree at a relatively affordable cost.

Some Colleges and Universities Do Better Than Others in Graduating African-American Students

We’ve been digging beneath the averages and looking at data from individual institutions in our College Results Online database. We’ve found that some institutions have horrendous graduation-rate gaps between white and black students—well above the national average. And it turns out that other institutions have no gaps at all. Our analysis strongly suggests that what colleges do with and for the students they admit matters a great deal.

Some public four-year colleges and universities have made good progress in closing graduation-rate gaps.

(Corrected version posted February 16, 2010.)

Public flagship and research universities spend millions of dollars every year to aid wealthy students who don't need it, while providing inadequate support to low-income and minority students who do. Some flagships are stepping up to the challenge and focusing on access and success. An account of their performance and progress appears at the end of this report.