Six University of California campuses, including Berkeley, lead the nation in enrollment of low-income students who qualify for Pell Grants, according to a new study.

The study, published last month in Postsecondary Education Opportunity, a newsletter on college access, ranked the nation's top-rated universities according to the number of enrolled students who receive federal Pell Grants. The grants are awarded to students with family incomes below$35,000 a year.

The study defined top universities as those listed in the top 50 in U.S. News and World Report's 2001 college rankings.

According to the study, UC campuses hold the top six spots in the nation in number of Pell recipients enrolled.

UCLA ranked first, with 35.1 percent of its students qualifying for the federal award, while UC Berkeley ranked second, with 32.4 percent of its students receiving Pell Grants.

The other UC campuses in the top six are UC Irvine, 31.5 percent; UC Davis, 28.5 percent; UC San Diego, 28.3 percent; and UC Santa Barbara, 24.8 percent.

University of Southern California ranks seventh in the nation, with 24.1 percent of its students receiving Pell Grants.

"I didn't know I was going to find this California pattern," said study author Tom Mortenson, higher education policy analyst with Postsecondary Education Opportunity and senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education.

"There's something about the water or the air or the scenery in California that leaves you guys considerably more open to enrolling kids from low-income families," Mortenson said.

Richard Black, assistant vice chancellor of admissions and enrollment at UC Berkeley, said the campus' track record in enrolling low-income students "is a matter of considerable institutional pride."

"It's the American dream," he said. "Berkeley has always been here for immigrants and continues to be here for immigrants and people from low-income backgrounds. But not only that, I think what's most important is we're supporting them on their road to success."

State aid cited

UC campuses consistently rank high in the number of Pell recipients, said Kate Jeffery, the system's director of student financial support. She attributes it to the opportunities offered through the state, such as the Cal Grant program, which offers free money for qualifying students, and internal financial aid programs offered through UC. Those programs, offered in conjunction with Pell Grants, help students pay tuition.

"The combination of having both a strong state and institutional program is unusual," Jeffery said.

UC data shows that the system's two other undergraduate campuses, Riverside and Santa Cruz, also enroll high numbers of Pell Grant recipients, with 40.9 percent and 26.7 percent, respectively. Those campuses weren't included in Mortenson's study because they didn't make U.S. News and World Report's top 50.

Mortenson's report was critical of other top universities' track record in enrolling Pell Grant recipients.

Troubling trend

"Not only are there relatively few students from low-income families on these best national university campuses, but their shares of undergraduate enrollments are shrinking," Mortenson wrote. "America's best national universities have chosen to enroll primarily students born to high-income families."

It's a troubling trend, Mortenson said, since a growing number of students who are heading to college are from lower-income families.

But Tony Pals, director of public information with the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, called the study "an arbitrary and misleading measure of what colleges are doing to reach out and educate low-income students."

Private colleges respond

Pals said Pell Grant recipients alone paint an inaccurate picture of low-income enrollments, since private colleges offer hefty institutional aid packages to low-income students. Those packages aren't considered in the study, he said.

"Private colleges enroll the same percentage of low-income students as public institutions," Pals said. "It's been the same for the last 10 years."

The study analyzes Pell Grant data from the 1992-93 and 2001-2002 school years.

Mortenson said he doesn't think the data would be substantially different if more recent rankings were used.

More recent data compiled by UC shows that their campuses are enrolling more Pell recipients. In 2002-03, 38.5 percent of UCLA students received Pell Grants, and 33.1 percent of Berkeley's students received them.

But Mortenson and others are concerned that California's budget crisis will mean fewer lower-income students at UC campuses. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, dealing with a $14 billion deficit, has proposed decreasing state financial aid programs and increasing tuition.

Already this year, Berkeley saw a 10 percent drop in the number of freshmen it admitted for fall 2004 who qualify for Pell Grants.

"We are very concerned about that," Black said. "That could be the straw in the wind that says the storm is coming, but it's too early to say."