Competitive colleges have wide disparities in admitting low-income students

A comparison of enrollment figures for low-income students shows wide disparities among the most competitive private colleges, The New York Times reports. At Vassar College, Amherst College and Emory University, 22 percent of undergraduates in 2010-11 received federal Pell Grants, which go mostly to students whose families earn less than $30,000 a year. The same year, only 7 percent of undergraduates at Washington University in St. Louis were Pell recipients, and 8 percent at Washington and Lee University were, according to the newspaper's research. Researchers at Georgetown University have found that at the most competitive colleges, only 14 percent of students come from the lower 50 percent of families by income.