Graduate School Channel
College Attendance and the Texas Top 10 Percent Law: Permanent Contagion or
Transitory Promise?
From
WWS
News, Princeton University
In the wake of the historic June
2003 ruling by the U.S. Supreme
Court in the Grutter v. Bollinger
case, which affirmed that universities
can consider race in admissions
decisions, there is growing support for
the repeal of H.B.588. Passed in 1997
and implemented in 1998 in response
to the Fifth Circuit Court’s ruling in
Hopwood v. U. of Texas Law School, this
law was designed to maintain or
improve campus diversity by guaranteeing
automatic admission to Texas public
institutions to students who graduate
in the top 10 percent of their class.
But in a new study, “College
Attendance and the Texas Top 10
Percent Law: Permanent Contagion or
Transitory Promise?” Marta Tienda, professor
of sociology and public affairs at
the Woodrow Wilson School, and coauthors
Kalena Cortes and Sunny Niu
of Princeton University’s Office of
Population Research have considered
whether, for whom, and how knowledge
and awareness of the Texas Top
10 Percent Law influences high school
students’ intentions to go to college,
and if the law impacts enrollment at
two- versus four-year institutions of
higher education.
The researchers analyzed survey data
from the Texas Higher Educational
Opportunity Project (THEOP). Based
on a representative sample of Texas
high school seniors first interviewed
during spring 2002 and reinterviewed
a year later, Tienda and her colleagues
found that students who knew a lot
about the Texas Top 10 Percent Law
were nearly five times as likely as their
counterparts who did not know about
the law to indicate that they planned
to attend a four-year college, relative to
not attending.
Further, the researchers found confirmation
that students’ knowledge of the
Texas Top 10 Percent Law was related
to enrollment: students very familiar
with the law were almost six times as
likely to enroll in a four-year college,
and almost twice as likely to enroll in a
two-year institution compared with
their student counterparts who did not
know about the law.
The study illustrates the need to analyze
the factors that promote high
school students’ college aspirations
and enrollment, particularly those of
blacks and Hispanics, and to draw lessons
from the experience with the
Texas Top 10 Percent plan.
Study Findings
The results of this study by Tienda and
her colleagues highlight stark differences
by race, ethnicity, rank in class,
and economic advantage when it
comes to college aspirations and actual
enrollment in an institution of higher
education.
Overall, minority and nonminority students
differed in their college intentions
and application behavior. Nearly
90 percent of Asian seniors reported
they were college-bound compared
with three out of four blacks and
whites, but only 62 percent of
Hispanics. Race and ethnic disparities
were smaller among students ranked in
the top 10 percent of their senior class,
but widened among lower ranked students.
Regarding college application
behavior, 60 percent of Asian, 46 percent
of white, 40 percent of black, and
30 percent of Hispanic seniors had
actually applied to one or more four-year
colleges by the spring of their senior
year. Although graduates in the
top 10 percent of their graduating
class were more likely than lower
ranked students to set their sights on
four-year institutions of higher education,
only 71 percent of the highest
ranking Hispanic graduates aspired to
four-year colleges as compared with
approximately 80 percent of similarly
ranked black and white graduates, and
versus 88 percent of students of Asian
origin.
Tienda and her colleagues also found
that when students begin to think
about going to college has a direct
impact on their college aspirations.
Compared with students who always
planned to pursue higher education,
seniors who did not begin thinking
about college until middle school were
less likely to report concrete plans to
do so, and those who only began thinking
about postsecondary education in
high school were even less likely to
report college intentions. There were
also large race and ethnic differences:
only 53 percent of Hispanic seniors
reported that they had always aspired
to attend college, compared with 71,
68 and 61 percent of Asian, white, and
black seniors, respectively.
The researchers identified other key
factors that influence the type of college
preferred, namely, cost and geographical
distance. Cost is the most
salient consideration in deciding
between two- and four-year institutions.
College-bound seniors who reported
that cost was a consideration in establishing
their preferences were just over
two times as likely as those with
unspecified preferences to name a
community (two-year) college as their
intended destination. Moreover,
seniors who reported that cost and distance
were important considerations in
their college choice were 1.7 and 1.5
times as likely as students who did not
consider these factors to actually enroll
in a two-year college.
Policy Implications
Given the changing demographic
composition of the state of Texas, and
evidence that minority students are
especially likely to form their college
aspirations late, the researchers identify
an urgent need to develop strategies
to cultivate college orientations in
elementary school, particularly for
Hispanic students, who exhibit the
lowest college-going rates despite their
rapid growth as a share of the state’s
population.
And as cost remains a strong disincentive,
the study authors recommend
that Texas and other states make college
affordable for high-achieving students
from low-income families who
desire to attend either two- or four-year
institutions. They propose developing
incentives for school districts
with weak college traditions to raise
their college-going rates. For example,
legislators and educators should
encourage the strengthening of partnerships
between schools and universities,
like the Longhorn Opportunity
Scholarship and Century Scholars
programs initiated by the University
of Texas and Texas A&M, respectively,
which provide financial support that
brings college attendance within the
reach of low-income students.
Because minority students are more
likely to enroll in two-year institutions
than their white counterparts, it is also
imperative that policymakers, in tandem
with university administrators,
focus on strengthening the transition
to four-year institutions so that the
numbers of college graduates match
enrollment rates.
“The Texas Top Ten Percent Law has
expanded opportunities, but policymakers
need to go further to provide
college opportunities for the state’s
high school graduates, especially
Hispanics, blacks, and the economically
disadvantaged,” Tienda noted in a
recent press release.
While there is growing evidence that
the Texas Top 10 Percent Law appears
to have broadened educational opportunity
throughout the state, there is
dissatisfaction with the saturation of
the public flagship with Top 10 admits.
“As Texas considers what to do about
the Top 10 Percent Law in response to
the Supreme Court’s affirmative action
decision, it may be a mistake to rescind
the law altogether,” Tienda stated.
“Instead, given the strong association
between knowledge of the law and college-
going behavior, it may be prudent
to remove the provision allowing students
to select their institution of
choice and allow the University of
Texas and Texas A&M systems to determine
where students are placed, as is
done in California and Florida.”
Readings of Related Interest @ IMDiversity
This article originally appeared in
WWS
News Volume 27, Issue 2 - Winter 2004.
 This
article has been reprinted with permission from Princeton University and the
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Please do
not repost without obtaining permission from the originating source. The
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (WWS) is a
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