This paper studies the causal impacts of public universities on the outcomes of their marginally admitted students. I use administrative admission records spanning all 35 public universities in Texas, which collectively enroll 10 percent of American public university students, to systematically identify and employ decentralized cutoffs in SAT/ACT…

The purpose of this paper is to document the indirect effects of the Texas Top Ten Percent Plan on professional school degrees awarded and to propose the far reach of the law as an alternative argument in support of race-conscious admissions policies challenged under the strict scrutiny standard. Designed around the two tests of strict scrutiny,…

Automatic admissions policies (AAPs, "percent plans") redistribute college-going opportunities across segregated high schools to diversify college enrollments, increasing opportunities at predominantly minority high schools. If students "game" AAPs by attending schools with increased opportunities, AAPs could alter racial…

Selective college admissions are fundamentally a question of tradeoffs: Given capacity, admitting one student means rejecting another. Research to date has generally estimated average effects of college selectivity and has been unable to distinguish between the effects on students gaining access and on those losing access under alternative…

While there is interest in pathways-aligned high school math reform among secondary education stakeholders, change in high school math depends a great deal on policies, practices, and norms at the higher education level. This report focuses on the role of higher education in influencing (encouraging or deterring) secondary education math reform.…

We examine the role of information in college matching behavior of low- and high-income students, exploiting a state automatic admissions policy that provides some students with perfect a priori certainty of college admissions. We find that admissions certainty encourages college-ready low-income students to seek more rigorous universities.…

Expanding and enhancing transfer pathways may help broaden participation in engineering. However, colleges of engineering have primarily focused their recruitment and retention efforts on students who matriculate directly from high school. Our research increases understanding of the transition experiences for engineering transfer students at…

The Supreme Court has established the parameters within which universities can practice race-conscious affirmative action for college admissions in a series of decisions beginning in l978. The key issues concern the educational impact of campus diversity and whether or not it is necessary to give some consideration to students' race into order to…

Graduate programs in adapted physical education (APE) prepare individuals to work with students with disabilities in the physical education setting. However, these APE graduate programs vary widely throughout the country, and there has never been a systematic effort to identify and analyze these programs. Therefore, the purpose of this…

To support the nation's college completion goals, early college high school (ECHS) reform creates opportunities for interested students to earn up to two years of free college credit during high school. ECHSs also have an equity objective: to target and enroll students who are historically underrepresented and/or might not otherwise go to college.…

This paper studies the effects of guaranteed college admission on student effort and achievement. In 1997, Texas enacted the "Top Ten Percent" law, which guarantees admission to any public college for students in the top ten percent of their high school class. In practice, eligible students become aware of their admission status at the…

This study examines several Texas university-based teacher preparation program screening measures and admission criteria. The researchers examined those measures stipulated in the Texas Administrative Code, as well as criteria that exceeded those required by the state. Identifying these measures and criteria will allow programs to maintain the…

This study focuses on Texas Borderland students admitted through the Texas Top 10% admissions policy, which assumes that Top 10% students are college ready for any public university and provides Top 10% high school graduates automatic admission to any 4-year public university in Texas. Using descriptive and inferential statistics, results…

This study describes a strategic planning process used for developing an educational leadership program that prepares principals for leading 21st century schools. The plan is based on recommendations received from the External reviewers representing Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, the Texas Education Agency, survey responses received…

Legal decisions about affirmative action in higher education do more than impact how admissions policies are structured. The discourse produced in these decisions structures how race is talked about, understood, and enacted in the context of higher education and beyond. However, critique of affirmative action rhetoric in the legal realm tends to…