SUNY Geneseo students on campus (SUNY Geneseo photo/Matt Burkhartt)
SUNY Geneseo is among the top selective colleges in the nation for serving students from low-income backgrounds, according to a list recently published in The New York Times Magazine.
The College-Access Index ranks SUNY Geneseo at #63, tied with schools such as Rutgers University and Binghamton University, on its list of the country’s 286 most selective universities ranked in order of economic diversity.
“Our ranking on the College-Access Index evidences our commitment to maximizing access by well-qualified students to Geneseo's high-quality education, in keeping with our equity-centered honors college vision,” says President Denise A. Battles.
The NYT measured economic diversity by analyzing the share of students receiving Pell Grants, which typically go to students from the bottom half of the income distribution. The analysis compared each college’s Pell share for the class entering in 2020–21 with the class entering in 2010–11. Geneseo’s 26% share of students receiving Pell Grants increased by five percentage points between the 2011 and 2021 academic years—demonstrating that, during the past decade, Geneseo enrolled an increased share of students who are economically disadvantaged.