FAYETTEVILLE -- A major University of Arkansas, Fayetteville grant aid program for out-of-state students has raised its minimum academic requirements as faculty leaders consider the broader question of whether to keep undergraduate admissions "test-optional."
Both the grant aid program and UA's general admissions standard scrapped -- temporarily -- the minimum test score requirements after the emergence of the covid-19 pandemic.
UA's faculty senate today is expected to hear how a surge in out-of-state students receiving support from UA's New Arkansan Non-Resident Tuition Award Scholarship contributed to a record-high freshman class of about 6,000 students this past fall.
Data on the scholarship recipients is part of a 10-page report that asks, "Why keep the test-optional policy of the past two years?"
The report states two possible benefits for the faculty to consider: a boost to student access and diversity "along race/ethnicity and HS/regional lines" and "increased freshman enrollment and resulting options for reshaping future enrollment."
UA spokesman Mark Rushing said any vote by the faculty on a change to admissions would still require approval from the provost and chancellor, and, if approved on campus, would then go to the University of Arkansas System Board of Trustees. Rushing also noted that a proposed change to admissions would be for the 2023-24 academic year rather than the upcoming academic year.
The scholarship award, described in UA documents as the NRTA, offsets by as much as 90% the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for students who meet certain academic requirements.
This past fall, UA enrolled a total of 1,716 students newly eligible for the Non-Resident Tuition Award Scholarship, a number "4.1 times the 2012-2020 average," according to documents prepared in advance of today's faculty meeting.
In contrast, "enrollment among other freshmen, at 4,296, was identical to the 2012-2020 average," the document states.
Beginning in summer 2023, UA will require incoming out-of-state, first-year students to have a high school grade-point average of 3.8 to receive the non-resident scholarship award covering 90% of the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition. The current minimum grade-point average is 3.6.
"We are doing this so high-achieving students have a greater sense of accomplishment and pride in receiving the award," Suzanne McCray, UA's top admissions official, said in an email.
McCray said the emergence of the pandemic disrupted college entrance exam testing for prospective students, so minimum test score requirements were dropped.
"When we moved to not requiring tests, we left the GPAs the same, but realized after a year of doing this, that we should have increased the GPA, so we have now done that for 2023," McCray said. The 3.8 minimum is "the highest GPA we have required," she said.
The minimum grade-point average is also being raised to 3.6 from 3.4 for the award covering 80% of the tuition differential.
No change is coming to eligibility for the award offsetting by 70% the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition, with the minimum grade-point average remaining at 3.2.
In recent years, about half of UA's incoming freshman class came from outside the state's borders, but out-of-state students made up roughly 55% of the incoming class this past fall, McCray said in September.
BROADER DISCUSSION
UA faculty will be presented today with a document suggesting that test-optional policies allow for UA to have larger incoming classes.
"Growth in new freshman enrollment beyond the old norm of 4,300-5,000 per fall to 6,000-plus can be attributed entirely to the test-optional policy," states the document, prepared by Jesse Delaney, UA's director of student success data analysis.
McCray said a committee is reviewing the current test optional admissions and that the proposal before faculty is to continue to be test-optional "going forward."
"Our initial numbers make clear that GPA is the most significant indicator of student success in college," McCray said. "Scores do not seem to make any difference for us as far as retention is concerned. Of course, we do not yet know how that will translate into graduate rates, but we want to be able to have the data to know."
Faculty members are considering a change to the university's catalog to say that in-state applicants with a 3.2 high school grade-point average will be considered for admission "without a qualifying test score." Testing would continue to be required -- as it is now -- "for placement and enrollment purposes and to meet state reporting requirements."
The current catalog language states that Arkansas residents with a high school grade-point average of 3.0 or better and an ACT score of 20 "meet the minimum admission requirements."
The proposed change says in-state students whose grade-point average is below 3.2 "should submit scores" from the ACT or a similar college entrance exam.
For out-of-state students, the catalog would continue to say: "Out-of-state applicants must meet minimum admissions requirements and may be required to meet higher standards, depending on demand."
Several colleges have moved toward eliminating minimum test scores from admissions standards.
Momentum for change has been increasing in recent years, said Jerome Lucido, executive director of the University of Southern California's Center for Enrollment Research, Policy and Practice.
"I think if you look back 5-10 years, we were in the midst of a rise in test-optional policies at both public and private institutions, with a slower rise in test-optional policies among the publics," Lucido said, adding that the pandemic led to many more schools at least temporarily doing away with test score requirements.
It's become common now for colleges to to announce a trial period to observe how well students perform when admitted under test-optional policies, Lucido said.
The Arkansas State University System Board of Trustees in June approved a change at ASU, allowing undergraduate admission without a minimum ACT score in fall 2022 if prospective freshmen have at least a 3.0 high school grade-point average or a top 20% ranking in their high school class. Students can also gain admission with a minimum ACT score of 19.
In December, ASU Chancellor Kelly Damphousse told trustees that the university had since seen an increase in admissions, with Black and minority student admissions up a greater percentage than the overall increase.
Data prepared in advance of UA's faculty senate meeting did not include information on minority students.
The UA document, along with including data on out-of-state students, also drew a connection between student outcomes like graduation rates and being able to adjust certain high school grade-point average requirements to influence enrollment.
"Based on 2022 admissions indicators, the test-optional policy appears capable of attracting more than 6,500 freshmen per fall. That expanded pool of would-be students gives the university the opportunity to trim future enrollment in ways that optimize retention and graduation," the document states.