Access to Higher Education: Exploring the Variation among Research Universities in the Prevalence of Pell Grant Recipients

Abstract

The prevalence of low-income students at 148 public and private research universities is studied using receipt of a federal Pell Grant as a proxy for low-income status. The authors consider the factors that may contribute to variation among research universities in the prevalence of low-income students among the undergraduate student body and the extent to which an institution’s actual low-income prevalence deviates from their estimates.