Texas House Bill 588 is a Texas law passed in 1997.
The law guarantees Texas students who graduated in the top ten percent of their high school class automatic admission to all state funded universities. The bill was created to encourage top Texas high school students to attend university in-state, instead of elsewhere. The law only guarantees admission, not funding or placement in a desired major. Students student must still find the means to pay and may not achieve their desired choice of major. Another existing law provides full scholarship for the class valedictorian of a Texas high school.
The law has drawn praise and criticism alike. It has been seen as favoring minorities and being unfairly balanced against small high schools. The law has been blamed for keeping students not in the top ten percent but with other credentials, such as high SAT scores or leadership and extracurricular experience, out of the larger state universities, such as the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. The University of Texas at Austin, often called UT or Texas, is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. ... Texas A&M University, often Texas A&M, A&M or TAMU for short, is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. ...
Some administrators, such as former University of Texas at Austin president Larry Faulkner, have advocated capping the number of top ten percent students for any year at one half of the incoming class. Others have suggested a move to a top seven percent law. However, the Texas Legislature has not revised the law in any way since its inception. The University of Texas at Austin, often called UT or Texas, is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. ... Larry Faulkner is president of the University of Texas at Austin. ... The Texas Legislature is the central lawmaking body of the U.S. state of Texas. ...
The law is next able to be revised during the 80th Regular Session (2007).
The bill was created to encourage top Texas high school students to attend university in-state, instead of elsewhere.
Some administrators, such as former University of Texas at Austin president Larry Faulkner, have advocated capping the number of top ten percent students for any year at one half of the incoming class.
Founded in 1883, the University is sometimes referred to as a "Public Ivy," and it is currently (as of Fall 2005) the fifth largest single-campus in the nation by enrollment (and had the largest enrollment in the country from 1997-2003), with upwards of 50,000 students and 20,000 faculty and staff.
After Texas gained its independence from Mexico in 1836, the Congress of Texas adopted the Constitution of the Republic, which included a provision to establish public education in republic, including two universities or colleges.
After the war, the Texas Constitution of 1866 mandated that the state establish a university "at an early day." The passing of the Morrill Act in 1862 facilitated the creation of Texas AandM College, which would be established in 1876.
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