UT needs a little breathing room
Saturday, June 4, 2009
Editorial
While some measures fell apart and others were left hanging in the final days of the legislative session, Texas lawmakers did come up with a solid compromise regarding the state's automatic admission law. The compromise gives the University of Texas at Austin the authority needed to better manage freshman enrollment without imposing limits on other colleges and universities that aren't experiencing difficulty with what's called the top 10 percent rule.
The 1997 law requires Texas public universities to automatically admit students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. It has helped UT-Austin, Texas A&M and some other universities maintain and increase racial, ethnic and geographical diversity after a legal ruling — the 1996 Hopwood decision — banned the use of affirmative action admissions. The U.S. Supreme Court has since ruled that universities can use narrowly crafted affirmative action policies, but the race-neutral top 10 percent has been the preferred method of admitting students. It not only has helped increase enrollment of minority students but also those from rural regions of the state.
That is why lawmakers from rural and urban areas have defended and even championed the rule, while suburban legislators opposed it, believing that it crowded out suburban students with high scores on college entrance exams where competition for a spot in the top 10 percent is intense. Last fall, top 10 percent students made up 81 percent of UT-Austin's entering freshmen, limiting the university's ability to go after gifted students with musical talent or leadership skills who didn't graduate in the top of their class.
The competition for admission to UT-Austin underscores a major deficiency in Texas' higher education system. There are not enough top-tier state universities to accommodate all of the state's brightest and best students. As the school of choice, competition for admission to UT-Austin is fierce. Seats are limited, setting up tension between top 10 percent students and others who score high on entrance exams but for one reason or another don't graduate in the top 10 percent. Ultimately, the Legislature must build up other institutions and expand the pool of flagship universities.
Texas cannot afford to lose students who leave the state when they are denied admission to one of its top universities. It's been true for some time that Texas, the second most-populous state in the nation, needs more than two first-class public universities.
Besides UT-Austin, other universities are not being flooded with top 10 applicants and therefore have not called for limits on the law. They won't be forced to change their admission policies.
Clearly, UT-Austin needed greater flexibility, and that is what it gets in the compromise. Starting in 2011, UT-Austin can limit top 10 students to 75 percent of entering freshman from Texas. The Legislature will review the compromise in six years. That is reasonable and allows the Legislature to see if the law is helping.
Not everyone was pleased with the compromise. State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, reluctantly went along with it after saying it did not go far enough in relaxing the automatic admission law. Her agreement was paramount in getting legislation that both the House and Senate could live with, and her willingness to accept the compromise benefits UT. It's up to Gov. Rick Perry to sign the bill and give UT admissions officers a little breathing room.