Washington Monthly - September/October 2019 - 40

private nonprofit universities was about $27,000; at publics,
about $15,000.)
Consider the top fifty, printed here, as a great starting point for any high-achieving student looking for a college that will provide a great education while improving-not
sandbagging-their financial prospects. Consider the bottom
fifty, which you can find on our website, as a guide to those institutions that are trading on brand-name reputations while either
educating very few low-income students, ripping off the ones
who do attend, or both.

The Ivy Plus
"Affordable" is probably not the first word that comes to mind
when you think of Stanford, possibly the most selective national
university in the country. (Last year, it only accepted 4.3 percent
of applicants.) But Stanford shines in our social mobility metrics
by having the lowest net price-only $2,800 for families making
less than $75,000 a year-of the entire list. (The average for the
top fifty colleges is $10,323.) It also comes near the top of the field
for students' future earnings, and, somewhat more surprisingly,
educates an impressive percentage of first-generation students.
Stanford is part of a broader and very welcome trend:
many of the wealthiest and most prestigious colleges in the
country have made a serious commitment to providing generous financial aid to students who need it. That helps explain
why six Ivy League universities, plus MIT and Duke, also appear
in our top fifty.
Those colleges, in other words, are an incredible deal for
the middle-class and low-income students they accept. Where
they still lag behind is in the overall number of such students
they educate. These elite, "Ivy Plus" universities have barely increased incoming class sizes for multiple generations, even as
the college-going population has surged. That, of course, helps
them keep the almighty acceptance rate low. So while they deserve credit for improving their financial aid packages, they also
deserve reproach for not opening their doors to more deserving students. With their multibillion-dollar endowments, they
could afford it.

The Publics
Public universities don't tend to dominate national rankings of
elite universities, but many perform extremely well on our list.
Most noteworthy are the colleges that make up the University of
California system. Three of them appear in our top ten, and it's
easy to see why: they each graduate around 1,500 Pell students
each year, or roughly five times the number that Harvard does-
a truly impressive contribution to upward mobility for students
from modest backgrounds. Recognition is also due to the University of Florida. While it's best known for its big-time football and basketball programs, Florida's flagship public university
grants more bachelor's degrees to Pell-eligible students than any
other school on our list, and charges even less than the colleges
in the California system.
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September/October 2019

But the news from the public sector isn't all so great. When
the defending national champion Clemson Tigers take the football field against in-state rival University of South Carolina this
fall, both teams will be representing big-name public universities that do a lousy job furthering the public good. Students who
attend those schools end up earning significantly less money
than expected given their demographic and academic makeup.
Graduation rates for Pell students lag behind the non-Pell population by double digits. Along with the University of Alabama-
Huntsville (where an appalling 40 percent of students haven't
paid back $1 in loan principal five years after graduating), Auburn University, and the University of Pittsburgh, these public
institutions need to start remembering that the public is who
they're supposed to be serving.

Private Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges
Most of the household names toward the bottom of our list,
however, are private nonprofits. Tucked together in the bottom quartile are a handful of well-regarded liberal arts colleges, including Oberlin and Bard, ranked 179 and 180, where students from families making under $75,000 a year pay $17,307
and $20,096 on average, respectively, and which educate a trivial number of low-income students. (Sarah Lawrence is number
156.) We also find near the bottom a number of big-name national universities with outrageous price tags and poor outcomes,
like Tulane ($20,003), Hofstra ($30,010), and Baylor ($28,484).
Baylor at least has graduated a substantial 467 Pell students on
average over the last two years; but given the amount of debt
those students have to take on and their low earning potential
($50,899 per year, about $6,000 less than expected), they'd likely
be better off going elsewhere.
To be fair to the bottom dwellers, it's a lot easier to give
generous financial aid packages while remaining academically
elite when you've got a massive endowment, like Harvard. But
that excuse only goes so far. Let's do one more college comparison. Georgetown's endowment per student is about $90,000-
far less than other prestigious private national universities. Yet
Georgetown costs middle- and low-income families an average
of only $10,560; graduates 222 Pell students a year, at only a 1
percent lower rate than the rest of the student body; and sends
graduates into careers that earn a median of $90,491 ten years
after entering. As a result, it ranks tenth on our list.
The University of Tulsa, meanwhile, has roughly $250,000
per student. Yet it places dead last, largely because it costs the
same families $20,787 and graduates only seventy-six Pell students per year-at a 15 percent lower rate than non-Pell students. And its graduates earn a median of only $46,954, more
than $14,000 less than their demographic and academic profiles
would predict. Endowment, in other words, isn't destiny. Intentions matter more than anything, and too many colleges with
ample resources are failing their students, and the country, because they apparently just don't care enough to do better.
Gilad Edelman is executive editor of the Washington Monthly.
Washington Monthly - September/October 2019

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