Dive Brief:
- On Monday, preceding the release of U.S. News' annual college rankings, the New York Times debuted its College Access Index, a ranking of the most economically diverse top colleges.
- The top five schools on the list are Vassar College, Grinnell College, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Smith College, and Amherst College.
- Only schools with a four-year graduation rate of 75% or better in the 2011-12 school year were analyzed.
Dive Insight:
Was the Times trying to boost publicity for its listing by riding the coattails of the U.S. News & World Report best colleges rankings, or will it get buried? The Times list is an effort to draw attention to the problem of low-income high school students — even those with good grades and test scores — not getting into college. The index is calculated using each college’s share of students from low-income families and their net price of attendance for those students. The list also includes each school’s endowment per student. Princeton University is tops in that category, at $2.28 million, followed by Yale University at $1.99 million, and Harvard University at $1.52 million.