May 12 (Bloomberg) -- An unexpected e-mail put Cortni Marie Nucklos, a teenager from a poor South Carolina family, on the fast track to Harvard University. She is among a lucky few that Harvard and its elite college rivals are struggling to increase.

Two years ago, Nucklos's sole source of support was her mother, a textile-mill equipment operator earning less than $30,000 a year. Harvard wasn't on the now 18-year-old's mind until she got an unsolicited invitation to a recruiting session. Her mother drove her 50 miles to hear about free tuition offered by the Cambridge, Massachusetts, college, America's oldest, richest and most elite.

Harvard is dispatching recruiters to depressed U.S. locales, courting low-income applicants to help diversify the 6,715 undergraduates who are mostly from well-off families. Harvard, Yale University and other Ivy League schools say they aren't attracting as many disadvantaged students as they want, even with offers of free tuition. Nucklos was persuaded to apply when recruiters said financial aid would cover almost all of Harvard's $47,215 in annual costs, including room and board.

``It was so influential,'' she said. ``It was actually cheaper for me to go to Harvard than to go to a state school where I live.''

Harvard in December revised aid plans to become more affordable to the middle class, adding to its existing policy of free tuition for students from families with annual incomes below $60,000. Less well-known is Harvard's recruiting campaign among poor families aimed at preventing the school from becoming an exclusive preserve of the rich.

`Missing People'

``What we're trying to do is get these missing people into the game,'' said William Fitzsimmons, 64, dean of undergraduate admissions. ``They need a chance to compete against the affluent.''

Just 12 percent of Harvard undergraduates receive Pell Grants, a form of aid for households with income below about $40,000. More than 40 percent of U.S. families are in that category, according to the Census Bureau.

``Academic achievement is highly correlated to income levels, and that isn't something these institutions can change on their own,'' said Sandy Baum, 56, an economics professor at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York.

About a decade ago, Harvard recognized the need to seek students from low- and middle-income families, with the aim of maximizing opportunity for Americans. The school also faces the threat of legislation to force it to spend more of its $34.9 billion endowment on student aid.

`Enriching the Rich'

Senator Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican, has said college needs to be made more affordable. He has also raised issues of tax fairness in connection with Harvard's investment pool and those at other wealthy colleges. A Massachusetts legislator last week proposed taxing endowments of Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Amherst College and other wealthy private schools to help plug the state's budget gap.

``If they limit their enrollments to wealthy students they are basically enriching the rich and impoverishing the poor,'' said Thomas Mortenson, 65, senior scholar for the Washington- based Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. ``They ought to be free to do whatever they want to do, but I don't think they deserve tax-exempt status if they are weakening and dividing the country.''

In an initiative begun in 2004, Harvard buys lists of high school students who excelled on standard tests. The school focuses on regions where U.S. Census Bureau data show that incomes are below the U.S. average. Harvard locates the students and sends recruiters to meet them.

While Harvard says it wants to have students from low- income families represent a larger proportion of the college, the campaign has helped increase the number of students who receive Pell Grant faster than leading rivals such as Princeton University. Harvard's Fitzsimmons said the school doesn't have a quota it is trying to meet.

Pell Grants

In the last academic year, Harvard had 808 Pell recipients, twice as many as a decade earlier, according to U.S. Department of Education figures, better than many schools. The number of students getting Pell Grants at Yale fell 29 percent in the last 10 years, causing the school to institute programs similar to Harvard's.

The emphasis used to be on recruiting minorities to the school and Yale's last incoming freshman class was 30 percent students ``of color,'' said Jeffrey Brenzel, dean of undergraduate admissions since 2005. The focus toward socioeconomic diversity didn't gain as much attention until about three years ago, he said.

``We have broadened our recruiting efforts and improved financial aid to address socioeconomic class and low-income access as well as race,'' said Brenzel in an e-mail. ``These efforts take time.''

Penn and Cornell

Over the past decade Pell grantees fell 33 percent at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; and 21 percent at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, according to the Education Department.

The reason for the decline in Pell recipients at Penn may be that potential applicants are put off by the school's cost, now $46,124 a year, said William Schilling, director of student financial services. Cornell spokesman Simeon Moss said he was unable to explain the drop in Pell recipients.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 12, 2008 00:04 EDT