<p>The article says, "Under the compromise bill, universities could cap the number of Texas students admitted under the program to 75 percent of the entering resident freshman class. The bill would take effect in 2011."</p>
<p>Is there still an "automatic" percentage? As in a certain class rank that will automatically let you in? Or do the colleges just pick now? The statement gives no "actual percentage" but rather a freshmen cap. </p>
<p>They will do it like the business and engineering schools admit students - they will start at 1% and go up until 75% of the class is filled, then the final 25% will be admitted holistically.</p>
<p>You’ve posted before about the expected drop in the number of grads. Is that nationwide? According to the census.gov site, the population of TX is projected to increase by nearly 60% by 2030. I don’t understand why you think the number of students will drop here when the population is rising so dramatically. </p>
<p>It’s because of the age gap. The classes of 2008 and 2009 are the last vestiges of the “baby boom echo.” The number of people born in the late 1960’s and 1970’s is smaller than the numbers in the late 1940s to the early 1960s, so there are less kids of high school age alive overall.</p>
<p>So there will be less grads because of national demographics. Texas is growing but that doesn’t mean that the number of people with high school aged kids are growing.</p>
<p>I saw stats on this recently but I don’t have the link. The number of high school graduates in Texas will continue to increase for at least another decade. Nationally, however, this year is the peak.</p>
<p>The Northern states will all be contracting quite severely over the next 10-20 years. </p>
<p>Using the data linked to by the previous post, by 2020 Texas will have 25% more people ages 15-19 than it did in 2000. It’ll actually accelerate; the different for 2000 to 2010 is only 6.4% for the same age range.</p>
<p>And non-scientifically, our schools, which had been contracting to the point that they closed 2 highschools in the district 20 years ago, have been growing every year. When my oldest graduated 4 years ago, the local highschool’ graduating class had around 400 kids, then 3 years later, my second son’s class had 460, my youngest’s class of 2010 has just over 500. </p>
<p>They have had to use temporary buildings at the middle schools and elementary schools, and have begun building projects at most in the district because of the population growth in the district, and I don’t live in one of those districts like Plano or Katy/Cy Fair where there is room to build and grow - I can’t imagine the building going on in those areas - all I know is Cy Fair has over 100,000 students and is growing exponentially. Every year it seems like there is some new highschool that starts with CY ;). </p>
<p>And, if all those kids running around my neighborhood is any indication, the schools will continue to grow!</p>