National perspective
The National Perspective
The issue | The research | The findings | What's nextToday, more than ever, postsecondary education is critical to the nation's prosperity and the full participation of its people. If efforts to encourage higher education are to be successful, however, they must begin with a careful assessment of the college opportunities now available to all citizens. In short, before we can go where we want to be, we need to see where we are. This study, Unequal Opportunity: Disparities in College Access Among the 50 States, provides that vital picture. The study, commissioned by Lumina Foundation for Education, gives state and federal policy-makers a new tool to determine whether and where qualified students are effectively being denied access to postsecondary education.
The study evaluates more than 2,800 colleges and universities in the 50 states and the District of Columbia according to their "accessibility" to typical state residents seeking undergraduate study. "Accessibility" for any college requires two components: admissibility (whether a college will admit typical college-bound students in that state) and affordability (whether such students can afford to attend). Because it encompasses every state and combines admissions, enrollment, financial aid and income data from several different sources, Unequal Opportunity presents one of the most comprehensive and accurate pictures ever drawn of students' accessibility to the nation's undergraduate institutions — whether two-year or four-year, public or private. Its authors hope it will be a valuable tool for policy-makers and other higher education officials.
- Access to postsecondary education is unequal among states. These inequalities exist because the percentage of admissible institutions and the percentage of affordable institutions vary widely among states.
- Low-income dependent and independent students have far fewer accessible options than do their median-income counterparts.
- To achieve affordability, borrowing is more frequently required of low-income dependent students than of their median-income counterparts.
- The interaction between a state's tuition and fee policies and its financial aid programs can contribute to unequal access. Large state grant programs or low-tuition policies by themselves do not guarantee that public colleges and universities will be affordable. In some cases, both are needed.
- Student loans often make the difference in terms of college affordability for low-income students. But even with loans and other financial aid, low-income students have access to fewer colleges than do median-income students.
Although this study does not document the actual behavior of students, it does clearly describe the real-world environment in which students make decisions about whether and where they will be able to attend college. The research provides a common set of definitions for admissibility, affordability and accessibility. With this information, policy-makers at all levels will be better able to make judgments about access and opportunity for different kinds of students in the different states. And making those judgments wisely is a critical first step in diminishing the inequalities that prevent this nation and its citizens from reaching their potential.
For more detail, you can examine the report in any of three ways:- Download the narrative portion of the full monograph (979k) — a 73-page report that includes an executive summary and detailed appendices that fully explain the research methodology.
- Link to individual state summaries. These state-by-state summaries allow you to compare college-accessibility rates in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
Note: To view either the full monograph or the state summary pages, you'll need Acrobat Reader, available free from Adobe. - E-mail us at pgriffin@luminafoundation.org to request a printed copy of the report via regular mail.
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