Every spring, over 800,000 Texas students receive their university decision letters—a few paragraphs in the fanciest envelope they have ever received—informing them whether or not they were accepted into their dream college. But for many students in Texas, the dream to attend one of the state’s flagship universities will not come true, not because the students failed to distinguish themselves academically, but solely because of the school district they attended.
Texas universities, by state law, operate their own sort of “legacy admissions.” Except, instead of admitting students based on what family they belong to, a legacy advantage is conferred to those students who rank in the top 10% of each school district in Texas. The rest of the applicants, no matter how deserving, are left to fight over the scraps.
Why would Texas pass such a law? Is it to guarantee that the most academically gifted students in Texas have a sure spot in state schools? In fact, it’s the opposite. The Top 10% rule was created as a cynical ploy to circumvent the Hopwood decision (incidentally also against the University of Texas) that prohibited the use of racial quotas in university admissions.
See, politicians have gotten it into their heads that the purpose of higher education is not to educate but to socially engineer society. Affirmative action was instituted on the premise that it was beneficial to society to admit non-white students to university over white applicants with higher academic achievement. Of course, once this floodgate was opened, everyone had a reason for why their group deserved a reserved slice of the pie, and now rural areas are some of the staunchest supporters of this university admissions by electoral college.
That students might actually learn something they could put to use for the good of the country is secondary to the fact that students receive the spoils of coveted spots, spoils that must be distributed to client groups across racial and geographic lines.
It is hard to argue, however, in the Year of Our Lord 2026, that students are being denied dignity and advancement by having to consign themselves to UT-RGV or UT-Permian Basin. It is more likely the case that we lose sparks of genius, an iota at a time across tens of thousands of students, by depriving scholars access to resources they can best use strictly according to merit.
Of course, all of this is besides the point to the students who see their futures being sacrificed for the sake of some social scientist’s theory about how to construct an equitable society. They see the system for what it is, a political carveout that betrays the core promise of education: You will be judged according to your merits.