More than half of all students at the University come from families who earn more than $100,000 a year, according to USA Today. The lack of socio-economic diversity at the University was scrutinized in a recent article that described a national decline in students from lower income levels attending selective colleges.
Only 3 percent of students at the nation's 146 most selective colleges come from the lowest socioeconomic quarter; 74 percent come from the top quarter, USA Today reported.
According to Student Financial Services Director Yvonne B. Hubbard, the University has become less socio-economically diverse over the years. She said some high school students believe they do not have the financial means to attend the University.
"We were becoming less diverse," Hubbard said. "As we become more elite, people are self-selecting out."
Of last year's incoming first-year class, 58 percent of students reported family incomes of $100,000 or more. One in five members of the class reported an income of $200,000 or more -- only 2.4 percent of U.S. households report earning that much income.
"We saw that our diversity was declining on socio-economic terms and, we said we need to make sure that students with needs have those needs met," Hubbard said.
Last fall the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill was the first selective public university to remove loans from financial aid packages and replace them with grants. The University followed in February by committing $16 million to "Access UVa," a financial aid initiative.
According to Hubbard, 215 members of last year's graduating class each had incurred over $16,000 in debt during their four years at the University. Had the "Access UVa" loan cap of $16,000 been in place, those loans would have been replaced with grants which would have saved the class of 2004 over $1 million in total debt.
But other experts argue that it will take more than offering financial aid to needy students to diversify the University economically.
Education School Dean David W. Breneman, an expert in economics and finance in education, said there needs to be added emphasis on reaching out to qualified students from lower income families that would otherwise not consider the University in the application process.
"Access UVa is part of the answer, but if you don't have the admissions outreach to bring people into the pool it doesn't mean very much," Breneman said. "We have to be much more active on the recruitment side."
The financial aid process also must be simple enough to attract students who may not have a lot of people to help them in filling out paper work and apply for aid, Breneman said.
"The whole financial aid process has gotten so hard to fathom," he said.
According to Dean of Admissions Jack Blackburn, the University wants to continue to welcome qualified students and not base admission on income level.
"When we read applications we recognize the obstacles that some students have overcome and we give students credit for that," Blackburn said. "We are not going to be taking students who aren't as well qualified."
Hubbard said she believes the University is in the same situation as other selective public schools.
"We are all in the same boat all elite flagship public institutions," she said.
Breneman said he thinks the USA Today article was considerably accurate and worries that it might attract even more higher-income students.
"I think it is going to make U.Va. even more attractive to high income kids -- in a perverse marketing campaign," he said.
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