The Texas Top Ten Percent Law

The Texas Top Ten Percent Law

During the past decade, the Texas Top Ten Percent Law has been implemented in order to increase the diversity of minority groups attending elite universities. The Top Ten Percent Law, which grants all students who graduate in the top ten percent of their class to automatic admission to any Texas public college or university, has caused controversy on whether it has been effective in the increase of minority enrollment in the universities. Debate has arouse on whether this law is fair or unfair to students and if it should either be repealed or modified in order to improve equity of student enrollment in Texas universities. The Texas Top Ten Percent Law has aspired and opened opportunity for students who never imagined of being enrolled in a selective university; therefore, the law should be kept but modified in order to continue to influence students at low performing high schools, as well as students in high performing high schools.

The Texas Top Ten Percent Law was implemented in 1997 in response to Hopwood v Texas. After the federal court outlawed the use of race in the admissions policies of the states public universities in 1996, Texas legislators came up with Top Ten Percent Law in effort to increase diversity at state colleges and universities. A law which gives automatically admits any student in the state of Texas who graduates in the top ten percent of their class.

…the Top 10 Percent Law,…, guaranteeing admission to any public college or university in the state for Texas students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. This law was designed to broaden access to public higher education institutions by promoting greater geographic, socioeconomic, and racial/ethnic representation without using race as an admissions criterion. (Barr 3)

Supporters of the Top ten Percent Law believe that this law has been a critical tool in achieving student diversity at both the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M. Seven years after the implementation of the Top Ten Percent Law, freshman enrollment at the University of Texas at Austin for Hispanics was 1,265, for African Americans it was 348, and for Whites it was 3,795 compared to 772 Hispanics, 162 African American, and 3,656 Whites in 1996. The law has had a more dramatic impact in University of Texas at Austin where the institution reveals that percentage of freshman students admitted under the Top Ten Percent Law has reached approximately sixty-three percent, while in Texas A&M only forty-six percent of the freshman class was admitted under the law. While class ranking is the number one criterion for this law, critics of the Top Ten Percent Law argue that due to the law, test scores, essays of recommendation, leadership, and athletic or artistic talents as well as other criterions, all become irrelevant.

Concerns about the Top Ten Percent Law focus largely on …that in admitting a freshman class largely according to one criterion, namely class standing, the law does not allow for sufficient consideration of other factors such as special talents in music, art, writing, etc., which make a university more intellectually stimulating. (Paredes 1)

The law’s critics argue that the law prefers students with the best grades over students with the best overall records. They point out that some students may play it safe all year by taking easy courses and graduating at the top of their class, while other students take honors courses and be involved in extra curriculum activities and then finish just below the ten percent. “It seems to me that graduates from the top 10 percent of all schools, or graduates who offer more to the university by way of diversity of skills or experience have an equally strong claim, if not a stronger one,” (Paperwight’s Fair Shot). Critics believe that these are important measures that colleges and universities should take into consideration when it comes to the admissions policy.

The Top Ten Percent Law has not only caused diversity, but it has also raised the aspiration and opportunities for students who otherwise would of never thought of attending such universities. “That means our fundamental concerns should be expanding educational opportunity, achieving educational equity and motivating all the young people of Texas to pursue higher education,” (Paredes 3). This law gives students from poor small towns and inner cities, who have put in time and effort necessary to finish at the top of their class, an opportunity to strive in one of the states elite universities. “I was a first-generation college-goer myself, and I can tell you that when someone opens the door and says come in, it makes a difference,” (quoted in Gutfeld). This law has given the opportunity to dedicated students from all over the state of Texas to apply and actually be admitted into the state’s flagship universities.

One early finding is that under the new law, the University of Texas is drawing students from a greater number of high schools and from wider geographic area, a change that benefits white as well as minority students. …, high schools that began sending students after sending none or few in the past were principally inner-city minority schools in Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio and rural white high schools in east and northeast Texas. (Gutfeld 2)

The Top Ten Percent Law was set to increase diversity by giving equal opportunity to students who have the desire to attend a selective university, but unfortunately it is not seen the same way by parents of students who were not admitted into the states flagship universities. Such parents complain that the Top Ten Percent Law is unfairly rejecting their kids, who graduated just below the top ten percent of their class from a more demanding high school, and accepting higher ranked students from less competitive high schools. Which they believe is causing for students to apply in outside of state universities. “An increase in the number of applicants to Austin has aggravated this sense of an admissions squeeze. …many of the state’s brightest students have been forced to pursue college outside Texas, creating a form of brain drain,” (Tienda 1). According to supporters of the law, a Princeton study indicates that high-achieving students are not being crowded out; moreover, it appears that most students who enroll outside of the state of Texas do so by preference. Critics argue that the Top Ten Percent Law unfairly disadvantages