Giving Compass' Take:

· After ranking how well different colleges graduate minority students, a network of charter schools in Los Angeles has found that elite college have more success with low-income minority students.  

· How can colleges better support low-income and minority students?

· Check out this article about colleges boosting support for low-income and minority students. 

Though some selective colleges are more likely to graduate minority students — potentially leading to a greater payoff for their investment — many of these students perceive these institutions' hefty price tags as a barrier to attendance.

However, the "real cost" of college is usually much lower for low-income and middle-class students than the sticker price suggests. A New York Times analysis of 31 private and one public college found that low-income students with families making $50,000 or less paid on average $6,000 annually.

Yet students may be wary of taking on debt to cover those remaining costs, even if an elite school may be a better option. Students who attend selective colleges are less likely to have debt than those who attend "expensive lower-tier colleges," wrote higher education expert Jeffrey Selingo for The Washington Post.

Last year, Forbes' Best Value Ranking of colleges, which considers access for low-income students, found some similar results to the charter school's list. The University of California System campuses in Los Angeles and Berkeley topped the list at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Several selective private institutions such as Harvard, Stanford and Princeton were also in the top 10.

Read the full article about low-income, minority college students by James Paterson at Education Dive.