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The Education Trust recently published a report, entitled "Priced Out: How the Wrong Financial-Aid Policies Hurt Low-Income Students," [PDF file] which looks at the impact of federal, state and institutional financial aid policies upon low-income students.

According to the report, financial aid decisions are increasingly benefiting affluent students who could go to college without financial help, instead of helping those with the greatest demonstrated need--the average private non-profit institution spends almost twice as much in grant money on high-income students as it does on low-income students.

As a result, 82 percent of students from families in the highest income quartile in the U.S. have a bachelor's degree by age 24, while only 8 percent of those from the lowest income quartile do.

"Our findings suggest that both federal and state lawmakers, as well as institutional leaders, have been focusing too much on maintaining the status quo--or boosting their position in popular rankings--rather than improving college opportunity," José Cruz, co-author of the report and vice president of higher education program and policy at The Education Trust, said in a statement. "To reverse that trend and to align our policies with our values, we must reevaluate financial-aid policies at all levels to ensure that precious financial-aid dollars are being used to increase opportunity, not to limit it."

The report finds that only five U.S. colleges and universities meet basic criteria on affordability, access and quality: Baruch College, City University of New York; California State University, Fullerton; California State University, Long Beach; Queens College, City University of New York; and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Those institutions charge low-income students less than $4,600 a year, serve a proportion of low-income students that at least matches the national average, and provide students with at least a one-in-two chance of graduating within six years.

"These institutions deserve to be recognized for swimming against the tide and making the opportunity for a college education available to low-income students," Mamie Lynch, co-author of the report and higher education research and policy analyst at The Education Trust, said in a statement. "But we should be deeply worried that there are so few institutions doing this. The more general pattern is pricing low-income students out of higher education and all that it offers them, their communities and our entire country."

The study is based on data from the U.S. Department of Education, which is available at The Education Trust's College Results Online site. More information on the sources of the data is available here.

For related news and other resources from Schools.com, see:

• Degree value in dollars: It pays to be unpopular (infographic)
• Upward Bound supports first-generation, college-bound high schoolers
• Price of admission: most colleges failing to serve low-income students
• Student finances: Today's students are poor, yet optimistic (infographic)