More public colleges admit high schoolers who haven’t applied to bolster minority enrollment

The number of statewide systems admitting high school students to regional public universities, even before they apply, has more than doubled as four-year programs work to bolster flagging minority enrollments.

Known as “direct admissions,” the practice allows high school students who maintain passing grades to bypass SAT testing, essay requirements, application fees and other paperwork to go straight into second-tier regional colleges. Highly selective state flagship schools, such as the University of Connecticut and the University of Wisconsin, do not participate.

Advocates say the trend saves time, resources and paperwork for less-selective colleges, which typically admit about 70% of applicants. Those schools have struggled the most with years of enrollment declines and pandemic-era cost increases that have reduced the number of low-income, Black and Hispanic applicants.

“In my mind, they’re not lowering standards; they’re removing barriers,” said Taylor Odle, a University of Wisconsin-Madison education policy professor researching college admissions. “I don’t think everyone needs to go to college, but right now, people who could succeed aren’t even applying because the process is too complex.”

Mr. Odle acknowledged the risk of admitting some unprepared students to college but said state-run schools are responsible for providing remedial education to adults lacking basic reading and math skills.

Direct admissions are surging as small state colleges with falling enrollments struggle to attract minorities from low-income areas. Recent enrollment reports show those students have increasingly favored blue-collar trade certifications and community colleges over pricier four-year programs as tuition and living costs rise.

Critics say the practice exploits those students for state-funded tuition dollars by setting them up for failure. They note statistics showing that minorities are the most likely to drop out of second-tier colleges or graduate with massive federal loan debts they cannot pay off.

“Direct admissions is aggressive marketing akin to sending unsolicited credit cards to people,” said Peter Wood, president of the conservative National Association of Scholars and a former associate provost at private Boston University. “The message is that college admission has nothing to do with academic achievement or intellectual performance.”

Over the past year, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, New York and Wisconsin have provided funds for campuses to mail “guaranteed acceptance” letters to high school students. More states are expected to follow. Idaho, South Dakota, Hawaii and Minnesota launched programs in the years before COVID-19 shuttered campuses in March 2020.

Hundreds of individual campuses from Virginia to California have piloted similar “direct admissions” programs in recent years. Some of the programs accept students as early as ninth grade.

In the California State University system, Fresno State’s “Bulldog Bound” program automatically accepts freshmen from 89 public high schools who graduate with C averages or 2.5 GPAs. These freshmen get Fresno State IDs, email addresses and access to campus libraries. Their college applications, fees and standardized testing requirements are waived.

Fresno State said it plans to admit 1,691 of the 2,214 high school students in the class of 2024 for the fall semester.

“It’s more than admissions. It’s a commitment to supporting dreams and building futures,” Phong Yang, Fresno State’s associate vice president for strategic enrollment management, told The Washington Times.

Other programs send acceptance letters to high school juniors and seniors after they create online profiles in Common App, Concourse or other college application platforms.

In November, Common App launched a national direct admissions program allowing 71 participating colleges in 28 states to mail more than 400,000 acceptance letters to disadvantaged students.

That followed three rounds of pilot programs from 2021 through 2023 that found Black and Hispanic students from low-income ZIP codes were more likely to apply for college after receiving the letters. Public institutions participating in the program include Georgia State University, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Virginia Commonwealth University.

“Common App’s program identifies first-generation and middle- and low-income students who meet the admissions requirements of participating institutions and informs those students that they have been conditionally accepted to a given institution based on their qualifications,” said Emma Steele, a spokesperson for Common App. “It’s also a way for colleges to expand their reach for students.”

Advocates say support for direct admissions has increased since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action as a factor in college admissions last summer.

In a 2020 study of Common App data conducted by the University of Wisconsin’s Mr. Odle, high school students were 3% to 4% more likely to contact an institution after receiving a guaranteed acceptance letter.

“Direct admissions is race-blind because it has nothing to do with the color of someone’s skin,” Mr. Odle told The Times. “So institutions don’t have to be concerned about whether it’s illegal or not coming out of the Supreme Court decision.”

Proponents also emphasize data showing that direct admissions benefit the one-fourth of all students who leave their college applications incomplete because of fatigue over the maze of required fees, essays, letters and deadlines.

After enacting the nation’s first statewide direct admissions program, Idaho’s public colleges reported enrollment increases of 3% to 4%, or 80 to 100 students per campus.

“Idaho was a pioneer in the direct admission field when they implemented their policy in 2015,” said David Hawkins, chief education and policy officer at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “We believe that a large number of states and institutions … will be engaged in direct admission as a core feature of admission systems in the years to come.”

Reached for comment, some veteran university administrators offered mixed opinions on the prospect of direct admissions becoming widespread nationally.

“A college diploma is a marker that families rightly celebrate, [and] it is good to have it within reach of those who will apply themselves,” said Ronald J. Rychlak, a law professor and former associate dean at the flagship University of Mississippi. “It’s not good to reduce its value by turning it into a participation trophy.”

Len Jessup, former president of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said he used direct admissions during his tenure to “lock in great students from good local high schools.”

“I do think it will help struggling schools stay afloat financially,” Mr. Jessup said. “Many schools are pulling down hard on every revenue lever they have, and this is an attractive lever.”