Recession hurting low-income prospective college students

In these agonizing months between the completion of college applications and the arrival of the first envelopes in the spring, many high school seniors and their parents are speculating about whether the economic downturn will harm their chances of admission to one of the nation's top colleges and universities. And a few well-to-do parents I know have even confessed their hope that hard times and declining endowments may have improved their children's chances of admission, as colleges look for full-paying freshmen.

Before the recession, most of America's wealthiest and most selective schools were following policies designed to increase the numbers of low- and moderate-income students on their campuses. First, they evaluated applications without consideration of parents' ability to pay, a practice known as "need blind" admissions. Second, if students qualified for financial aid, many of these colleges promised to meet their full demonstrated need.

But while about two dozen of the country's top-tier colleges and universities — schools such as Harvard and Princeton — are maintaining these policies and, in a few cases, expanding their financial commitments to low- and moderate-income students, at schools just below this tier, admissions are becoming more "need aware." These schools are now making some admissions decisions with an eye to an applicant's ability to pay, and some are unofficially reserving new seats for those who can pay full freight.

Meanwhile, the top public universities — the Chapel Hills, Ann Arbors and Berkeleys — are moving to enroll larger numbers of out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition and therefore tend to be wealthier than in-state students.

Of course, wealthy families have always enjoyed an advantage at the top colleges. In the 1950s, Arthur Howe, the admissions director at Yale, calculated that at least two-thirds of Yale's students would need to pay their full way for the university to meet its financial obligations. Today, many institutions provide scholarship aid to more than a third of their incoming classes — at Princeton nearly half receive financial aid — but those admitted are, as a group, still much wealthier than the general population. SAT scores are strongly correlated to family income, so an admissions policy that favors high scores means a large proportion of students whose parents can pay $50,000 a year. High-income families can also support activities, such as playing violin with the city orchestra, that make for impressive applications.