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At the Capitol Major higher education reforms
New laws address flagship status and admissions
By Patrick Brendel
Texas lawmakers passed legislation
creating incentives for public colleges to
strive toward achieving Tier One research
university status. They tweaked the state’s
Top 10 Percent rule for college admissions
for the University of Texas at Austin
but balked at completely reforming the
system. Legislation to re-regulate college
tuition increases failed at the end of the
Regular Session.
Flagship universities
The state of Texas has two public Tier
One research institutions: UT-Austin and
Texas A&M in College Station. (The other
Texas Tier One school is the private Rice
University in Houston.) In contrast, California
has nine “flagship” schools, while
New York has five.
Colleges throughout the state are vying
for the elite Tier One status and the accompanying
prestige and funds. Contenders
include the University of Houston,
Texas Tech University in Lubbock,
University of North Texas in Denton,
UT-Arlington, UT-Dallas, UT-El Paso
and UT-San Antonio.
To avoid inciting regional animosity,
lawmakers shied away from designating
particular schools as Tier One, instead
creating incentives for emerging research
universities and a process to achieve Tier
One designation.
The legislation establishes three incentive
funds that would go to colleges
according to research performed, number
of degrees awarded and amount of private
gifts received. The bill is meant to encourage
all types of public four-year colleges
to improve, not just to reward one or two
schools with Tier One status.
Schools striving for Tier One status
would have to submit detailed, long-range
strategic plans to the Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board, which is in
charge of Tier One designations.
The Tier One legislation also included
$150 million in bonds to rebuild the
University of Texas Medical Branch at
Galveston. The campus was severely damaged
by Hurricane Ike last fall. Another
related bill allows Texas A&M to start
working toward the creation of a fouryear
college in downtown San Antonio.
Top 10 Percent
Since 1997, Texas high school students
graduating in the top 10 percent of their
class are guaranteed admission to the
public college campus of their choice. The
law has been credited with removing disparities
in admissions between students
from rural and urban areas, but has not
led to racial equality in freshmen classes.
The University of Texas at Austin has
long pushed legislators to change the
Top 10 Percent rule, citing shrinking
flexibility in admissions decisions as it
voluntarily attempted to restrain the total
number of students enrolled each year.
Last fall, more than 75 percent of enrolled
freshmen were admitted under the Top 10
Percent rule. Almost half of Texas A&M’s
fall 2008 freshman class were Top 10
Percent students.
Legislators gave serious consideration
to a bill that would have significantly
reformed the Top 10 Percent Rule. Under
that proposal, Top 10 Percent students
would not necessarily be guaranteed the
campus of their choice. The bill capped
the number of Top 10 Percent students
a campus has to accept at 50 percent of
freshman admissions. (Another version
of that bill set the cap at 60 percent.)
Students would be admitted to the campus
according to their percentile rank.
Students not admitted would be assigned
to a different campus within the same
university system.
On the House floor, an impromptu
coalition of rural and minority legislators
swamped the proposal because they
believed that the Top 10 Percent Rule
provided a more level playing field for
their constituents.
They approved an amendment to the
bill that makes it applicable only to UT-
Austin. The legislation allows UT-Austin
to cap the amount of Top 10 Percent students
at 75 percent of the freshman class.
Tuition re-regulation
Due to shortfalls in state funding for
higher education, in 2003 the Legislature
began allowing Texas colleges to set their
own tuition rates. Since then, tuition and
fees have risen by more than 85 percent.
In an attempt to rein in skyrocketing
college costs, lawmakers tried to pass
legislation that prohibits Texas’ major
schools — including UT and Texas A&M
— from increasing their tuition and fees
by more than 5 percent each year.
Schools would be allowed to create programs
so that incoming freshmen could
“lock in” their first-year tuition rate for
four years.
Some colleges would not be allowed
to raise tuition and fees at all, unless a
legislative study determined that state
funding is insufficient. The legislation also
encouraged state lawmakers to provide
adequate funding to public higher education
institutions.
In the end, objections from the university
systems won out, and no changes
were made to tuition deregulation.
impactnews.com June 2009 | 13
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