Is college aid shifting away from neediest?

WASHINGTON — College financial aid has been shifting away from the most disadvantaged, low-income students, and the schools themselves are the most to blame, according to a watchdog group.

Although state and federal assistance is increasingly merit-based instead of need-based, the biggest shift has occurred in institutions' financial aid packages, according to the Washington-based Education Trust, which monitors equity issues in education.

At private, four-year colleges and universities, the average award for students with family incomes below $20,000 was $836 in 1995. That grew over eight years to $1,251, a 50 percent increase.

But the average institutional grant to students from families making more than $100,000 grew 227 percent to $781, according to the Education Trust.

The trend was more pronounced at private colleges and universities.

The group attributes the change to colleges' giving more of their limited grant funds to the most talented high school graduates to make the institution look better on college rankings.

"Educational opportunity is now taking a back seat to institutional prestige," said Education Trust Director Kati Haycock.

Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said that, if anything, the group understated the problem.

"The report doesn't really go as far as it could in pointing out how the poor are losing in this process," Nassirian said. "There is no question that need-based aid has lagged."

Students who don't get enough aid may give up entirely or enroll part-time or in two-year colleges, routes that are less likely to result in a degree, Haycock said.

The group is also critical that not enough is being done to improve the graduation rates of low-income and minority students. Their suggested remedies include:

• Changing the way institutions are ranked to put more emphasis on their rerecord of admitting and graduating low-income and minority students.

• Evaluating college presidents on how well they improve access and success with low-income students.

• Increasing state aid to schools that serve low-income and first-generation college students while also increasing accountability measures.

• Increasing the value of federal Pell Grants, which have not kept up with the increases in tuition.

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On the Web: www.edtrust.org, The Education Trust.