Kansas City, Mo. ? The University of Missouri-Columbia and Kansas University fared poorly on a national report card that graded leading public universities on their recruitment of minority and low-income students.

Missouri and Kansas, both of which were given the overall grade of D, were among 50 institutions assessed. The Education Trust of Washington, D.C., which commissioned the report, looked at one flagship institution in each state.

“We thought that by grading them on measures they are not typically held accountable for, it would shine a light on these inequities,” said Danette Gerald, who co-wrote the report and is the trust’s senior research associate.

No university in the study scored an A, and only four earned B’s. The schools were graded on how well they did at giving minority and low-income students access, graduation rates for those students and progress made from 1992 to 2004 in both the graduation and access areas.

Overall in the various areas, the most common grade was an F. Both Missouri and Kansas received an F in some areas, with Missouri’s best mark a B and the best for Kansas a C.

At the University of Missouri, officials say minority enrollment has increased since 2001. The university recruited 2,216 minority students for fall 2006, a 30 percent increase from 2001, said Ann Korschgen, Missouri vice provost for enrollment management. That statistic excludes Asian-Americans, a group not underrepresented at flagship institutions.

At Kansas University, minority enrollment for fall 2006 was 3,198. Minorities make up 12.2 percent of the university’s roughly 30,000 students, officials said. That is 12 percent more than last year and 11.6 percent more than in 2004.

“We are focusing on this with more interest than we had in the past, partly because of the responsibility we have for the future of our state,” said Kansas Provost Richard Lariviere, who noted the state’s growing minority population. “We welcome this kind of scrutiny of higher education. We at KU get this problem. … It is a priority for KU.”

Both universities graded better in the area of graduating minority and low-income students.