Opinion

STAFF EDITORIAL: Improved admission standards will benefit UH

President Renu Khator announced that the ‘Board of Regents approves higher freshmen admission standards at UH… on road to (becoming a) nationally competitive (flagship university)’ via her Twitter account last week.

Getting into UH isn’t overly difficult; to a certain extent, it could be considered a free ride to college. It is not by any means, however, a free ride through college. Students here work hard and earn their degrees. But if UH were to become more selective, its degrees would be even more valuable.’

UH automatically accepts all students who graduate in the top 20 percent of their high school graduating classes. The Board of Regents plans to become more selective, making admission standards more rigorous and only accepting the top 10 percent while setting stricter requirements for the ACT and SAT scores of students who are not in the top 10 percentile.

UH’s eligibility to receive the funds made available by Proposition 4 includes the school having top-quality undergraduate students. According to the Houston Chronicle, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board hasn’t defined what ‘top-quality undergraduate students’ means yet, but Provost John Antel said one factor will be graduation rates, which he plans to augment. Coupled with more selective admission standards, many students may be happy they are already enrolled.

It’s interesting to think how many of us could benefit from UH becoming a flagship university after or during our tenure here. For many of us, it’s a win-win-win; we get educated, it’s not too expensive, it wasn’t too difficult to get in and now our degrees will be worth much more.’

UH and Rice University are sports rivals, but imagine if the schools competed for talent on a national level. Could this benefit Houston’s economy? Most certainly.

If the worth of UH degrees increases, it benefits us all – especially if, like many of us, you wouldn’t have been accepted under the stricter requirements.

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