Policy Transparency and College Enrollment: Did the Texas Top Ten Percent Law Broaden Access to the Public Flagships?

Abstract

By guaranteeing college admission to all students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class, Texas H.B. 588 replaced an opaque de facto practice of admitting nearly all top 10 percent graduates with a transparent de jure policy that required public institutions to admit all applicants eligible for the guarantee. The new admission regime sent a clear message to students attending high schools that previously sent few students to the Texas flagships. Using 18 years of administrative data to examine sending patterns, we find a sizeable decrease in the concentration of flagship enrollees originating from select feeder schools and growing shares of enrollees originating from high schools located in rural areas, small towns, and midsize cities, as well as from schools with concentrations of poor and minority students. For new sending schools, we find substantial year-to-year persistence in sending behavior, which increased after the top 10 percent policy was implemented.