Why Does Duke Have So Few Low-Income Students? - Commentary

Columnist David Leonhardt writes:  A recent academic study of 12 elite colleges — the eight in the Ivy League, as well as Duke, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago — found that Duke gave some of the largest advantages in the admission process to students from families making at least $250,000 a year. Only about 12 percent of Duke students in recent years have received Pell Grants, the largest federal scholarship program, which is typically available to families in the lower half of the income distribution, earning $60,000 a year or less. By comparison, the Pell shares at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, M.I.T. and Columbia have each recently hovered around 20 percent.