Harvard University has a $25 billion endowment and in 2003-4, only 6 percent of its undergraduates were of sufficiently modest means to qualify for Pell Grants. While Pell eligibility varies based on a number of factors, only 5 percent of Harvard undergraduates that year came from families with incomes less than $30,000.

At Trinity University, in Washington, there’s a lot less money in the bank — but a much larger share of students are getting Pell Grants. The endowment is about $9 million. In 2003-4, fully half of Trinity’s students were poor enough for Pell Grants, and 26 percent came from families with incomes less than $30,000.

If the comparison makes anyone in Cambridge squeamish (or just has someone objecting to the comparison’s fairness), that’s precisely the point of a new Web site, Economic Diversity of Colleges …


…[T]he new data drive home that many of the most prestigious and most wealthy colleges in the country — public and private — aren’t necessarily the leaders when it comes to educating low-income students…

…Patricia McGuire, the president of Trinity, says that she thinks “it’s shameful” that the wealthiest institutions in the United States aren’t educating more low-income students. “They make the big headlines when they drop the loan requirements for students, but that’s a drop in the bucket, considering their condition,” she said.