The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action will have little impact locally or statewide, according to Texas Higher Education Commissioner Harrison Keller and officials from Ector County ISD and The University of Texas Permian Basin.
Keller said UT Austin is the only state institution that had been including race as a consideration in admissions.
“The larger concern from institutions across the board is how to make sure the decision doesn’t have a detrimental impact on students’ applications or enrollment in higher education,” Keller said.
“Students may assume that the Supreme Court’s decision has a broader impact on the way their application will be considered than it actually does. There is some concern about whether the decision might have a chilling effect on students’ applications and enrollment,” Keller said.
He added that this means it will be important for institutions to lean into their efforts to market their programs to prospective students and make sure students are aware of the opportunities and programs they have available.
“That’s going to be an important area of focus over the next couple of years as institutions across the country and in Texas adjust their processes in the wake of this decision,” Keller said in a phone interview.
At this point, all the institutions wouldn’t be able to use race and ethnicity to make decisions on offers of admission. That has not been the practice at most Texas institutions.
“UT Austin in particular has defended their consideration of race as one of many factors in college admissions. That case had gone all the way to the Supreme Court, but that decision was overturned with the most recent decision,” Keller said.
UTPB Senior Vice President for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management Becky Spurlock said UTPB’s goal is to serve the region.
“Our recruiting reflects our region, and so for us it’s not the same impact. We will continue to focus regionally. We will serve our population that’s here. It’s no surprise that the population of the university generally reflects the population in this region. None of those characteristics — race, gender, ethnicity — are part of the admissions process, so for us we carry on,” Spurlock said.
“We are regionally focused and our recruiting plan is regionally focused. You’ll see us at Midland College, the four major high schools and all the surrounding areas. We are here to serve the Permian Basin,” Spurlock added.
Another topic that has popped up from opinion columnists is that higher education is expensive because kindergarten through 12th grade education has done such a bad job of preparation.
Especially in the wake of the pandemic, Keller said, college and university presidents across the state have told him they’ve never seen so much demand for remediation and mental health services.
“There are real costs associated with academic remediation and the kinds of supports you have to provide to help make sure that students stay on track and graduate on time,” Keller said.
That can include tutoring services, advising, additional online resources and other supports.
“There are costs associated with academic remediation. That’s a relatively small slice of the overall budgets for institutions when you consider the scope of their operations — supporting the physical campus and all the equipment and operations and the faculty and staff. It’s (an) important but relatively small part of the overall budget for institutions, so I don’t think you can say that poor academic preparation has been the major driver of increased tuition over time. I actually would point out that most of our institution’s tuition has been relatively flat for the past five years,” Keller said.
If you look at the universities’ budgets overall, the state share of those budgets has become smaller and smaller, he said. This is an issue in Texas and nationwide.
“Some of that is because the expectations of the institution have changed and the scope of their operation has changed. The funding per student enrolled in higher education by the state hasn’t kept pace with enrollments for a long period of time,” Keller said.
The last legislative session was really important for Texas higher education because the legislature and the leadership came together to make substantial investments.
“That means higher education will be more affordable these next two years as a result of this biennium state budget and there’ll be more opportunities available especially through our community colleges. They passed a sweeping community college finance bill with major infusions of resources,” Keller said.
Ector County ISD Coordinator of Postsecondary Education Rico Enriquez said college preparation from kindergarten through 12th grade is improving.
“That may be the brush that public schools were painted with in years past, but I think in our district the things that we’re doing right now with college, career and military readiness have improved vastly. As I recall, in the spring State of the District (Superintendent) Dr. (Scott) Muri got up in front of everybody and shared some significant increases in the number of kids that are college or military ready,” Enriquez said.
Not all ECISD students go to a traditional college. A lot of them get industry-based certifications.
“They’re walking out of here with welding certs or certified as a nurse or an EMT. …There are a lot of pathways students can choose. I would say that overall across the district we look at making sure that we’re bringing as many opportunities as possible for students to be college, career or military ready,” Enriquez said.
They have brought events to high school campuses to reach every student, especially the ones most at risk or economically disadvantaged.
“We brought several UTPB Falcon showcases to high schools and our partnerships with the college and the university are amazing. We all want the same thing. We want to grow opportunities for our students. As part of those partnerships, we’ve been able to establish … data sharing agreements between ECISD and UTPB. Those are in draft right now. Maybe they started college and life happened, or COVID, or whatever happened and took them out of college for whatever reason. We’re able to reach out to them and offer them opportunities to come back into college; scholarships, financial aid support; inviting them to events, things that can get them a job,” Enriquez said.
“It’s a huge deal for us to have that kind of data sharing agreement,” Enriquez said.
Odessa College has introduced Odessa College Promise, a last-dollar-in scholarship opportunity that will cover the cost of tuition and fees, its website said.
ECISD had several students at one of OC’s events and Enriquez said it’s impressive to see the colleges reaching out to students to get them enrolled and break down the barriers to higher education.
From ECISD’s total of 1,690 graduates in 2022, 755 enrolled in college. Enriquez said that’s 45 percent and it doesn’t factor in students who got their certifications and are even starting their own businesses.
Only .04 percent of high school graduates nationwide get into Ivy League colleges.
“We’re close to that. We’re at about two students a year … That’s pretty much what it’s like in most school districts. Every once in a while, you might have a year where, wow, we have four. But what I’ve seen over the last few years is it’s about two a year,” Enriquez said.
He added that Ivy League schools take a holistic view of a student.
“They’re looking for those unique individuals, world-changer type of kids that have that global view about changing the world. Then of course test scores. SAT scores are huge on that decision, too,” Enriquez said.
In the past, students he has seen accepted into Ivy League schools were heavily involved in their communities, had leader’s personalities, had championed a cause or spearheaded a movement.
One of the yardsticks for college, career and military readiness, is meeting minimum scores on the SAT, ACT and TSIA2, which determines whether a student is ready to do college work.
High school students who are not college, career or military ready are enrolled in college preparation courses.
“This is district wide. We give students the opportunity to participate in college prep courses to help them meet that standard,” Enriquez said.
Most ECISD students shouldn’t have to be placed in remediation courses because of the preparation they receive in high school.
“Through our college prep course, we give our students the tools they need to be able to meet the standard needed for those tests. They’ll either meet standard on one of those tests, or they’ll meet college, career, military readiness through an industry based cert. … A lot of our students who are getting industry based arts are getting college credit as they go through that,” he added.
Students in the auto tech program at Odessa College get several hours of college credits and can continue at OC to earn their associate degrees.
Career and Technical Education programs of study can also lead a student toward an associate’s degree.
“There are multiple possibilities for our kids, but I think our school district does an excellent job of preparing students to be college ready,” Enriquez said.
