Guaranteeing admission to state universities makes it more likely that academically talented, low-income students will choose colleges that are challenging enough to match their abilities, concludes a new study in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
Researchers analyzed college applications of 146,000 Texas high school graduates in 2008 and 2009, when University of Texas campuses guaranteed admission to the top 10 percent of high school graduates in the state. With guaranteed admission, low-income students were 22 percentage points more likely to apply to a flagship campus and 23 percentage points less likely to choose a “safety” school.
