Texas House Bill 588

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 out-of-state.

The law only guarantees admission into university. Students must still find the means to pay, and may not achieve their desired choice of major. (Another existing law, which preceded 588, provides full scholarships 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.

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 law is next able to be revised during the 80th Regular Session (2007). HB 78 (80R), which caps admissions under the the 10% rule at 40%, has been pre-filed for this session.