The Financial Accessibility Index judges schools based on two factors: the percentage of incoming students receiving federal Pell grants and the net-price for a middle-income family. Pell grants are given to students with significant financial need and are used to determine how many low-income students are on campus. The net-price measures is meant to determine how well these students are supported.

There are some small problems with the data used by the New York Times. While the government and colleges determine financial need based on family income and a number of other factors, such as siblings in college and the family’s investments, the New York Times list focused solely on income. In addition, the definition of net-price middle-income changed between this year and last. While last year it was defined as 30k-48k dollars, this year middle-income was redefined as 48k-75k dollars. The actual mean income nation-wide has hovered around 48k dollars for the last decade, adjusting for inflation.

There is also a gap of about two years between the data reported by colleges and their most recent year. Though no comparison can be done with other colleges, Whitman share of Pell grant students has risen in the last two years, so it may expect to rank slightly higher in the NYT in the future. However, the issue remains that many colleges similar to Whitman in other regards do far better at being financially accessible.