The University of Kentucky came out relatively well in a gloomy national report yesterday that said when student financial aid is handed out, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

UK got an overall grade of “C” in a study by The Education Trust that criticized the nation’s 50 flagship public universities for increasing aid to their wealthiest students more than for minority and low-income students.

UK was one of 14 schools with an overall “C.” Four received a “B,” 25 a “D” and seven an “F.” There were no A’s.

The study said that from 1995 to 2003, the universities as a group increased financial aid 29 percent for low-income students and 186 percent for their wealthiest students, whose families earn more than $100,000 a year.

The universities were graded on 2004 data for minority access, low-income access and minority success — the graduation rate of minority students within six years of entering the university. The report, “Engines of Inequality: Diminishing Equity in the Nation’s Premier Universities,” said there were no data available to measure low-income students’ success rates.

By category, UK received a “C” for minority access, an “A” for low-income access, and a “C” for minority success, the report said.

“The University of Kentucky is one of only a few institutions on our report card that didn’t get a D or an F in the categories we graded,” said Danette Gerald, the study’s co-author with Kati Haycock, director of the trust.

The non-profit organization, based in Washington, D.C., focuses on issues dealing with the achievement gap between minority and white students.

The report’s criticism was pointed. Overall, it gave the universities a “D” for serving low-income students, an “F” for serving minority students and a “B” for minority success, or graduation rates.

“As a group, the nation’s 50 flagship universities are failing to serve the full breadth of their state’s populations,” the report said.

These universities are embarked on the “relentless pursuit not of expanded opportunity, but of increased selectivity,” the report said. “Many of these flagship institutions have become more and more enclaves for the most privileged of their state’s young people. This, undoubtedly, has devastating implications for our nation’s future.”

The highest marks went to the universities of Hawaii, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Vermont.

Lynda George, UK’s financial aid director, said financial aid officers nationwide are concerned about the increase in “merit” aid, which often goes to students who don’t need financial aid, and cuts in “need-based aid.”

Most financial aid officers, she said, prefer to give as much need-based aid as possible, and then use any leftover funds for merit aid, she said.

Alberto Garcia, a UK senior from Lexington, said he could not have attended UK without financial aid. He will graduate with a loan debt of $28,000, he said.

“I needed financial aid all the way,” he said.

Michelle Hopkins, a 2005 UK graduate who expects to get a master’s degree in communications, said she will have to repay $30,000 in loans. She said she probably could not have gone to UK without financial aid.

Robert F. Sexton of Lexington, executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, serves on the Education Trust’s board of directors.

The trust’s major donors include: Annie E. Casey Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Lumina Foundation for Education, MetLife Foundation and State Farm Companies Foundation.

Read the Education Trust’s study on Kentucky.com

For more about the organization, visit www2.edtrust.org/edtrust/default

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 11:22 pm and is filed under Education, Financial Aid. Tags: Education, Financial Aid, Loans, Student, Study. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.