The 20% Solution: Selective Colleges Can Afford to Admit More Pell Grant Recipients finds that if every college was required to have at least 20 percent Pell Grant recipients, nearly 79,000 more Pell students would have to be admitted to 349 colleges and universities, half of which are selective colleges. Some selective colleges have suggested that Pell Grant recipients do not gain admittance because they would not be able to keep up with the workload. However, the Georgetown Center report finds that 78 percent of Pell recipients who attend selective colleges and universities graduate, while their chances to complete diminish to 53 percent at open-access colleges.

1. The 20% Solution:
Selective Colleges Can Afford to Admit
More Pell Grant Recipients
By: Anthony P. Carnevale and Martin Van Der Werf
May 2, 2017

2. Overview
• There is a class divide in higher education.
• The Pell Grant was created as a solution to income inequality.
• A majority of Pell Grant recipients attend open-access colleges with low graduation
rates (49%).
• Highly-qualified Pell Grant students are, for the most part, not attending selective
colleges, which have much higher graduation rates (82%).
• The nation’s most elite universities could enroll more low-income students without
significantly hurting their graduation rates or budgets.
• Requiring a minimum enrollment standard of 20 percent Pell Grant recipients
could be a solution.

3. Who receives a Pell Grant?
• A majority of Pell Grant recipients are women (62%)
Georgetown
University
Center
on
Educa5on
and
the
Workforce
analysis
of
data
from
Educa5onal
Longitudinal
Study
of
2002,
third
followup
(2012),
and
the
NCES-­‐Barron’s
Admissions
Compe55veness
Index
Data
Files:
1972,
1982,
1992,
2004,
2008,
2014.

4. Who receives a Pell Grant? (cont.)
• Nearly three-quarters of Pell
Grant recipients are from
families making less than
$30,000 per year.
• 67 percent of Pell Grant
recipients attend public two-
year and four-year colleges, and
18 percent attend for-profit
colleges.
Georgetown
University
Center
on
Educa5on
and
the
Workforce
analysis
of
data
from
the
Na5onal
Center
for
Educa5on
Sta5s5cs
and
the
Na5onal
Postsecondary
Student
Aid
Study

5. Many qualified Pell Grant recipients do not attend
selective colleges
Of the 150,000 Pell
Grant recipients with
SAT/ACT scores at or
above the median on
SAT (1120), more than
half (86,000) do not
attend selective
universities.
Georgetown
University
Center
on
Educa5on
and
the
Workforce
analysis
of
data
from
Educa5onal
Longitudinal
Study
of
2002,
third
follow-­‐up
(2012),
and
the
NCES-­‐Barron’s
Admissions
Compe55veness
Index
Data
Files:
1972,
1982,
1992,
2004,
2008,
2014.

6. Pell Grant recipients graduate at higher rates at
selective colleges than at open-access colleges
• Seventy-eight percent of Pell recipients who attend selective colleges graduate,
compared to only 48 percent at open-access colleges.
Georgetown
University
Center
on
Educa5on
and
the
Workforce
analysis
of
restricted
use
Educa5onal
Longitudinal
Study
data,
2002
(2012
update).

7. Private colleges tend to have the lowest
number of Pell Grant recipients
• Sixty-nine of the 79 most selective colleges and universities that have less than 20
percent Pell Grant recipients are private.
• If every college was required to have at least 20 percent Pell Grant recipients, more
than 72,000 more Pell students would have to be admitted to 346 colleges and
universities.
• More than half of the Pell Grant recipients would be added to selective colleges.

8. Selective colleges can afford to admit
more Pell Grant recipients
• Sixty-nine of the most selective private colleges ran average budget surpluses of
$139 million over the last four years but admitted fewer than 20 percent Pell Grant
recipients.
• To meet a threshold of 20 percent Pell Grant recipients, the selective colleges that
would have to add the most Pell students are the University of Wisconsin-Madison
(1,467) and Penn State University (1,357).The private selective universities that
would have to add the most students are Boston University (1,046) and
Washington University in St. Louis (975).
• A small number of highly-selective colleges have student bodies in which more
than 20 percent are Pell Grant recipients, including Columbia University (21%) and
the University of California at Berkeley (31%).

9. Conclusion
• Mandating a certain percentage of Pell Grant recipients at all colleges could
equalize opportunity in higher education.
• The most selective colleges have the smallest proportion of low-income
students.The median Pell Grant recipient enrollment is only 14 percent.
• Only 6 percent of the 5,500 colleges and universities in America would
have to change their student mix to meet the 20 percent threshold.

10. For more information:
See the full report at: cew.georgetown.edu/Pell20
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