<p>Also, in an article from USA Today that I kept, it reported that:</p>
<p>"At the nation’s 146 most selective colleges, only 3% of students come from the lowest socioeconomic quarter, it says; 74% come from the top quarter.</p>
<p>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." </p>
<p>The UCLA study shows that first-generation college students often considered the most disadvantaged increasingly are concentrated in the least selective institutions, such as Mississippi Valley State University in Itta Bena, Miss., where nearly 95% of students receive Pell Grants. </p>
<p>At a time when a bachelor’s degree from the most elite colleges is seen as an entree to the best graduate programs, influential careers and leadership roles in society, some worry that higher education has strayed from Jefferson’s vision.</p>
<p>The “pursuit of excellence depends on opening wider the gates of opportunity,” former Princeton president William Bowen said in a speech last spring at the University of Virginia. “The fundamental question is whether these elite institutions should today be considered engines of opportunity or bastions of privilege.”</p>
<p>–</p>
<p>Well, I can say that UVa wants to be an engine of opportunity. So, as you can see, UVa is not alone is having less poor students, but at least it is doing something by working to attract more of them and by helping them to attend for free.</p>