USNews Peer Assessment

hoedown
Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:32:25 +0000

I wonder if explanation might be, in part, that the Princetons and Harvards are in a position to be so much more generous than most schools with outright grants.



Possible, but unlikely. The institutions would be foolish to turn down federal money to replace it with their own institutional dollars. In Harvard and Princeton’s case, they could afford to, but why would they? The Pell Grant is the U.S. government’s way of helping make college possible for the poorest families, and the dollars follow the student wherever they choose to go. Also, given that “% of Pell grant recipients” is used as a measure of economic diversity by outsiders, the colleges would be hurting themselves if they deflated those percentages by having their poor students turn them down.