Post-Hopwood plans

[Keith E. Whittington]

Mark Killenbeck wrote:

> Frank Cross's hypo regarding need-based scholarships and the resulting
> posts focus the issues nicely.  As Rich Friedman notes, a need based (or a
> combination of need and merit) scholarship plan likely reflects existing
> practices and is in fact an historically and academically accepted
> approach.  The 10% plans are, in turn, unique, both in their operation and
> in the origins.  Recall that these initiatives did not originate with the
> institutions themselves.  They are political solutions to the ban on the
> use of race.

Although it is certainly true that the current 10% plans arise out of recent
affirmative action controversies, I am not sure that these sorts of plans are
really that unique.  I was an undergraduate at the University of Texas in the
mid-1980s.  As I recall, UT then used a tiered admission system that combined class
rank and SAT scores (the higher your class rank, the lower the required SAT
score).  My recollection is that for those who graduated at the top of their class
(top 10%?) the SAT restriction was trivial.  I believe that system was altered in
the late 1980s, primarily to reduce the size of the undergraduate population.  The
current system is somewhat different and responds to a particular legal problem,
but in its basic outline it does not seem unprecedented for Texas.  Is my memory
wrong on this point (or, heaven forbid, does this mean UT was not really the "world
class institution" it advertised itself to be at the time)?

Keith Whittington
Princeton University

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