IDRA 2025 Policy Digest for Texas
Schools have a responsibility to prepare all students to succeed in college, but not quite half of students are meeting readiness benchmarks.
To achieve state goals for college access and success, Texas must provide high school students rigorous early college coursework, support targeted college advising, and promote a strong data infrastructure for students, families and college counselors to understand and access their college preparatory pathways.
Texas schools are losing Black and Latino students at twice the rate of white students
The attrition rate in Texas high schools – the rate at which ninth graders are no longer in school four years later – has improved over the past 35 years. But Texas high schools are still losing more than one in five high school students before graduation day.
Texas is losing Black and Latino students at twice the rate of white students. The gap between Black and white students has nearly doubled since 1986, from 7% to 13% (Quintanilla-Muñoz & Sánchez, 2024).
Strong school models and counseling support keep students in school and on track for college
Texas has already taken steps to promote proven models that keep students in school to not only earn diplomas but also to graduate college-ready through early college high schools (ECHS). Early college high schools are specifically designed for historically underserved students to earn up to two years of college credit through no-cost dual credit courses as they earn their high school diploma.
Students in these schools have a lower annual dropout rate than at other high schools, at 0.6% compared to 6.5% for charter schools and 2% for all public schools (TEA, 2024).
Early and engaging college counseling helps students transition into high school and beyond. College counselors make a difference in advising students to graduate college-ready (Bojorquez, 2023; Giani et al., 2024). Yet Texas lack data on college counseling opportunities for students, which makes it difficult to improve staffing and advising needs. Likewise, IDRA research shows there is not enough accessible data for families and counseling staff on how students’ high school pathways lead to certain student college or career outcomes (Bojorquez, 2023).
To strengthen academic advising and college counseling, schools need robust data systems that connect how students’ academic choices enable them to be ready for college or career options.
Despite these persistent challenges, Texas has led the way with inclusive admission policies for several decades through the Top Ten Percent Plan and tuition equity for all Texas high school graduates through the Texas DREAM Act (IDRA, 2021). These policies help make college attainable for Texas students from all backgrounds.
What Texas Needs the Legislature to Do
• Fund extensive early college high school models and counseling supports for students starting in middle school, especially for historically marginalized Black, Latino, emergent bilingual students and students from low-income households.
• Develop robust, aligned data systems that track pre-kindergarten through college academic pathways and outcomes.
• Protect policies that make higher education more accessible to all Texans, including the Top Ten Percent Plan and tuition equity for all Texas high school graduates to be eligible for in-state tuition, regardless of citizenship or immigration status.
Contact Chloe Latham Sikes, Ph.D., IDRA Deputy Director of Policy at chloe.sikes@idra.org
Bojorquez, H. (2023). School Counselors on College Advising Constraints – A Ready Texas Study. IDRA.
Giani, M., Woods, S., Guegen, L., & Torres, J. (2024). From Transactional to Transformational: Unpacking and Strengthening Advising Capacity. TXCAN, Educate Texas.
IDRA. (April 27, 2021). The Texas Top Ten Percent’s Legacy in Supporting Equal Access to College – Policy Brief. IDRA.
Quintanilla-Muñoz, C., & Sánchez, J. (October 2024). Schools Struggle to Hold On to Students – Preview of IDRA’s 38th Annual Texas Public School Attrition Study. IDRA Newsletter.
TEA. (August 2024). Secondary School Completion and Dropouts in Texas Public Schools 2022-23. Texas Education Agency.
