Low-income Students Scarce at Elite Colleges
Studies show that rich kids are not only more likely to pursue a bachelor's degree than poor kids, they're also far more likely to land in the nation's most prestigious schools. Nationwide, nine in 10 high school graduates from families earning more than $80,000 a year attend college by age 24, compared with just six in 10 from families earning less than $33,000, says a report by the Century Foundation, a progressive policy institute in Washington. At the nation's 146 most selective colleges, only 3 percent of students come from the lowest socioeconomic quarter, it says; 74 percent come from the top quarter. And the gap has widened: Wealthy kids are increasingly displacing middle-income students, according to a study of selective institutions by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. The UCLA study shows that first-generation college students -- often considered the most disadvantaged -- increasingly are concentrated in the least selective institutions. [more 
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