Hispanics in Higher Education and the Texas Top 10% Law

This paper examines the consequences of changes in Hispanic college enrollment after affirmative action was banned and replaced
by an admission guarantee for students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class. We use administrative data
on applicants, admittees, and enrollees from the two most selective public institutions and Texas Education Agency data about
high schools to evaluate whether and how application, admission, and enrollment rates changed under the three admission regimes.
Despite popular claims that the top 10% law has restored diversity to Texas’s public flagships, our analyses that account
for secular changes in the size of graduation cohorts show that Hispanics are more disadvantaged relative to whites under
the top 10% admission regime at both University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. Simulations of Hispanics’ gains
and losses at each stage of the college pipeline reveal that affirmative action is the most efficient policy to diversify
college campuses, even in highly segregated states like Texas.