Education Policy

Texas Top Ten Percent Plan at UT-Austin Has Dramatic Impact Within Texas Senate Districts

The Texas Top Ten Percent Plan has opened the doors of the flagship universities to low-income, rural and minority communities – all groups who were typically denied access to the flagships. For more information, see IDRA’s latest article, “Since When are Good Grades and Diversity a Bad Thing? – 7 Recommendations and the Texas Top Ten Percent Plan,” by David Hinojosa, J.D., IDRA National Director of Policy.

As the Texas Legislature considers potential changes to the Texas Top Ten Percent Plan, IDRA conducted an analysis of the percent of the entering freshman class who received automatic admission at the UT-Austin during the years 2009 through 2015. The graph below shows the results by Texas Senate District.

Note that, over time, UT-Austin alone has allowed to limit those students to less than 10 percent of the freshmen class. The graph reflects those reductions in 2009, Top 10 percent; 2010, Top 10 percent; 2011, Top 8 percent; 2012, Top 9 percent; 2013, Top 8 percent; 2014, Top 7 percent; and 2015, Top 7 percent.

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