Flagship Colleges’ Aid Priorities Knocked

States’ flagship universities are serving disproportionately fewer low-income and minority students than they were more than a decade ago, according to a report released last week by the Education Trust.

Such universities are generally considered the most selective and prestigious branches of their state systems of higher education.

In 1992, the report by the Washington-based research and advocacy organization says 24 percent of undergraduates at flagships received federal Pell Grants for students with low incomes, compared with 29 percent of undergraduates at all colleges. But by 2003, that gap had widened. That year, 22 percent of undergraduates at flagships received Pell Grants, compared with 35 percent of...