Tennessee Becomes Latest State To Offer Automatic College Admissions
Tennessee has become the latest state to introduce an automatic college admissions strategy, launching a direct college admissions program this fall.
As part of the Tennesee Direct Admissions program, about 41,000 students from more than 230 randomly selected high schools will be sent letters this November identifying the public and private colleges in the state that have automatically accepted them.
The goal is to help students clearly see where they've been accepted and better understand how they can afford to enroll, increasing the chances they'll decide to attend college.
A unique aspect of Tennessee's initiative is that approximately half of the students will also be sent information about the state and institutional financial aid for which they might be eligible, based on academic criteria like their GPA or standardized test scores.
To participate, students will simply be required to complete an application for the program by November 1.
A total of 53 higher education institutions are participating in the Tennessee Direct Admissions program and pilot, including 23 colleges of applied technology, 13 community colleges, and 17 public and private colleges and universities.
'The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) and our community and technical colleges are excited to be part of this groundbreaking project for the benefit of students,' said TBR Chancellor Flora W. Tydings. 'We've been working for some time on ways to streamline the enrollment process, and automatic admission with the financial aid application makes perfect sense. Making the admissions and financial aid process easier will be good for students and parents, and that's why all of our institutions are gladly participating in the Direct Admissions pilot.'
Researchers will use data from the pilot to analyze how providing different levels of information to high-school graduates affects their college-going behavior. The first-of-its-kind pilot is being conducted by a partnership involving the TBR, the Lumina Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Making Caring Common at the Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Researchers will be able to learn whether high school students who receive both financial aid information and direct admissions bids are more likely to attend college than those who only get automatic admissions offers. They will also be able to compare the outcomes against those for students who are not sent any direct admissions information.
'Through this study, we will learn not only about the impact of direct admissions and financial aid on students' college enrollment, but how students feel about their direct admission experience,' Trisha Ross Anderson, a Harvard University researcher working on the project, said in a statement.
Tennessee joins several other states that have turned to direct admissions programs to try to boost college attendance rates. In June, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed House Bill 3522, which created the Public University Direct Admission Program Act in his state.
Idaho was one of the first states to introduce a direct college admissions program, rolling it out in 2015. Initial evaluations show that it yielded an increase in first-time undergraduate enrollments by more than 8% and in-state student enrollments by almost 12%.
Since then, several private companies and more than a dozen states have jumped into the direct admissions business. The Common Application (Common App) piloted a direct admissions program since 2021, offering admission to students who created a Common App account and provided enough academic information but had not yet completed all of their open applications. It has since expanded the program.
'Too much red tape complicates students' pathways to college—limiting who can get a degree and access a well-paying job,' said Dr. Taylor Odle, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who is serving as the Principal Investigator for the pilot study.
'By simplifying the college admissions and financial aid processes in tandem, we are taking a monumental step in making college more accessible and sending a clear message to students: There is a place for you in college—and there are resources to help you afford it," added Odle. "No complicated forms, no application fees, no long essays, no letters of recommendation.'Research shows that the college application and financial aid process often feels too complex, causing many students to give up before completing their applications. One in four students starts an application but never finish.
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