Washington, D.C. - Higher education is a crucial pathway to social and economic mobility. Yet many of the public universities that should be helping students move forward are instead failing to enroll enough low-income undergraduates. As a result, tens of thousands of young people are missing their first, critical step toward opportunity. 

In a new report, Serving Their Share, the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP)explores the ways in which some colleges and universities are - or are not - enrolling low-income students. 

"Many selective institutions top the lists of college rankings, but don't enroll as many low-income students as they could," Michelle Asha Cooper, president of IHEP, said. 

In Serving Their Share, researchers compared each institution's actual enrollment of Pell Grant recipients to a measure that predicts how many low-income students the institution could enroll given its level of selectivity. The report then estimates how many additional low-income students each college could graduate if it increased Pell enrollment to match the prediction while maintaining its current graduation rates. 

As a result, the report identifies 10 "Potential Contributor" schools - institutions that could potentially contribute more low-income college graduates towards our national attainment goals. Many of these schools are large public universities with high graduation rates, large overall enrollments, and few Pell Grant recipients relative to their size. (See the list of Potential Contributors below.) 

"Our analysis shows that the top 10 Potential Contributors could graduate between 4,200 and 6,000 more low-income students each year, without changing their admissions standards," Cooper said. "While it's true that some of those students might have graduated from another college or university, we know that many might have attended a less selective institution - and risked having a lower chance of graduating. Some would not have gone to college at all." 

The report shows clearly that the problem is not unsolvable. At least 10 schools - called "Access Improvers" by IHEP researchers - have substantially increased Pell enrollment rates in recent years while maintaining above-average graduation rates and below-average loan default rates. These schools are academically similar to the lagging "Potential Contributors," but they outperform them by substantial margins when it comes to low-income student access. 

"The colleges in the Access Improver list prove that through strong leadership and deliberate recruitment, it is possible to increase the number of low-income students enrolled, and help them succeed on their paths to graduation." (See the list of Access Improvers below.) 

A condensed version of Serving Their Share was released over the summer as a part of Washington Monthly magazine's annual College Guide, which ranks colleges and universities. This longer, more-in depth analysis delves deeper into the methodology and shares in greater detail just how the schools that are exceeding expectations are succeeding.

Read the report, Serving their Share, here.