"Much has been made of the need to improve access to higher education for students from low-income backgrounds and those who are part of the first generation in their families to attend college," Inside Higher Ed reports. "But the many recent initiatives by colleges to increase their recruitment of and financial aid for such students will only truly succeed if the traditionally underrepresented students thrive academically once they're there. New data compiled by the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education suggest that on that count, the picture is not good. The analysis, presented by the institute's interim director, Jennifer Engle, at the Student Financial Aid Research Network Conference Saturday in Baltimore, makes abundantly clear how the deck is stacked against students who both come from low-income families and are first-generation college students - what the researchers call the 'double whammy of disadvantage.'"