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Backgrounder

Unequal opportunity persists after more than 30 years of higher education improvement

The most recent report from Lumina Foundation for Education Unequal Opportunity: Disparities in College Access Among the 50 Statesrepresents one of the most comprehensive pictures ever drawn of students' accessibility to the nation's undergraduate institutions. Detailed below are highlights from the past 30 years that will help frame the results of this research project.
Even though the numbers of colleges and students have grown over the past three decades, low-income students still have significantly fewer options than their higher income classmates and generally need to borrow to make college affordable, according to Lumina Foundation's Unequal Opportunity report.
This research project was inspired by the 1970 College Board study titled Free-Access Higher Education, which was published five years after passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Since then, the number of degree-granting colleges and universities has increased by 1,000 to 3,376. This growth came despite the closure of 450 institutions between 1968-69 and 1998-99. 1960s also marked the beginning of efforts to expand educational opportunity for low-income and racial and ethnic minority students. Improvements included the creation of the Pell Grant program and the expansion of the federal education loan program.
Relevant changes in higher education can be categorized into three main areas:

1. Enrollment has increased.
• Total undergraduate enrollment increased from nearly 7.4 million students in Fall 1970 to 12.2 million in Fall 1998. Nearly two-thirds of the growth took place at public two-year institutions, where enrollment jumped from 2.2 million to 5.3 million.
• At public four-year institutions, undergraduate enrollment increased by nearly 1.3 million.
• Enrollment grew more slowly at private four-year colleges and universities than at public institutions. The average enrollment at private institutions also remained much smaller.
• Overall, full-time undergraduate enrollment at public-four year, public two-year and private four-year institutions increased by more than 2 million students, from 5.3 million to 7.4 million, an increase of 39 percent. Part-time enrollment more than doubled, from 2.1 million to 4.8 million.


2. The price of college and amount of available financial aid have increased.
• Tuition and required fees increased nearly tenfold in current dollars and more than doubled in constant dollars at all types of institutions between 1968-69 and 1998-99. Average annual tuition and fees at public two-year colleges jumped from $170 in 1968 to $1,633 in 1999. At public four-year institutions, average tuition rose from $338 to $3,243 in 30 years. At private four-year colleges and universities, average annual tuition rose from $1,398 to $14,508.
• In 1970-71, financial aid for needy students was limited. Loans accounted for $1.25 billion of the $1.62 billion generally available federal financial aid. The total amount of generally available financial aid from all sources for students at all levels in 1970 was equivalent to $11.15 billion in constant 1998 dollars. By 1998-99, the total amount of generally available aid reached $61.8 billion, including $7.2 billion in Pell Grants, $34.6 billion in federal loans, $3.5 billion in state grants and $12.2 billion in institutional grant aid.


3. College students reflect a more diverse cross-section of the nation's population.
• College participation rates among 18- to 24-year-olds increased for all ethnic groups between 1972-73 and 1998-99. At the same time, participation rates among 18- to 24-year-old black and Hispanic high school graduates, and particularly among all black and Hispanic 18- to 24-year-olds, continue to lag behind those for whites.
• Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, the number of high school graduates dropped and the total number of them headed for college rose slowly, if at all. Part-time enrollment grew, however, particularly among adults and women. At public community colleges, part-time enrollment increased more than threefold from just more than 1 million to 3.4 million. This growth at two-year institutions accounted for more than 80 percent of the total growth in part-time undergraduate enrollment.

For more information, contact Sara Murray-Plumer, director of communications at (317) 951-5493 or splumer@luminafoundation.org.

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