Dive Brief:
- Accepted methods of measuring whether colleges are providing enough access to low-income students don't take into account the unequal income distribution among the regions from which the institutions traditionally draw, a new analysis in EducationNext contends.
- For example, the flagship universities in Connecticut and Illinois draw from pools of students with higher income distributions compared to those in Montana, Maine and New Mexico, the researchers note. Measuring their access by comparing their shares of students who get Pell Grants or who are in the bottom quintile could lead to "penalties for institutions that are actually succeeding in providing opportunities for low-income students and trigger rewards for institutions that are less successful than they might appear," they write.
- "Flawed measures" such as Pell or bottom quintile shares can create "perverse incentives" for institutions, the researchers contend. To improve their rankings on such measures, colleges may enroll more low-income students who are less prepared for college or recruit more out-of-state students who meet their thresholds.
Dive Insight:
The researchers' analysis reveals how some institutions that appear to enroll too few low-income students are actually succeeding at creating access, while others with apparent good records are not enrolling disadvantaged students at an adequate pace.
For instance, while the University of Wisconsin-Madison ranks near the bottom of U.S. flagship institutions for the share of Pell students it enrolls, it rises to the No. 6 slot when ranked by the share of students it enrolls who are below the 20th percentile of its relevant pool. Conversely, the University of Montana ranks No. 3 for its share of Pell students, but falls to No. 47 when measured against its relevant pool.
The researchers also take issue with the intergenerational mobility measure, an increasingly popular method that measures the share of students who come from lower-income families and ended up with higher incomes. Depending on the state, the researchers argue, this can penalize an institution twice in areas where few adults are in either the top or bottom of national income quintiles.
Yet rankings using these measures abound. The New York Times has used the mobility measure to draw attention to economic diversity at several schools, which "shamed some institutions into changing their admissions practices and policies," Inside Higher Ed reported. Likewise, the popular U.S. News & World Report college ranking began including social mobility in its latest edition.
This isn't the first analysis to find flaws in common methods used for measuring college access. A Brookings Institution report in 2017 found using Pell Grants as a proxy for measuring low-income student enrollment has "significant shortcomings." That's because its eligibility rules have changed over time, making it difficult to track, and some middle-income students quality as well.