The Arkansas State University Student Government Association passed a new bill at Tuesday’s meeting to change the university’s admission standards to boost enrollment.

The bill is going to lower GPA and test score requirements for incoming students. University Administration reached out about now having a “second pathway” for administration. Using data from the past school year, the bill proposes new adjusted requirements for the admission process for the 2023-2024 school year.

A second admission pathway is in place at other Arkansas universities that A-State did not have before the bill. The idea is to take a more holistic approach to the admission process.

The bill read: “Whereas, the need for a holistic admission process ‘especially with minority and low income students’ to ‘provide students admitted with pack support ( students admitted under the holistic pathway) with tools for success including a student support assistant for each college to work with students ‘admitted with Pack Support.’”

According to data provided in the bill, out of the 224 freshmen who were denied admission to A-State, 215 would have been admitted to the University of Arkansas based on their holistic admission process.

One of the Senators who voted in opposition of the bill was Brandon Turnbull due to concerns with the proposed standards.

“My concern is that we’re lowering the standard so low. What type of university will we be in years to come if the quality of students here is so low and not relatively high? The University of Arkansas has higher retention rates than we do, so I don’t know that lowering is necessary,” Turnbull said.

“We feel it is very similar to the second pathway of the majority of the other schools offering,” Senator Colton Sedman said in response. “If we’re a university that they want to go to and we’re able to provide them with the resources, they should have just as fair a chance to come here as to the University of Arkansas or the University of Central Arkansas.”

Later in the bill it read “Introduction/modification of Arkansas State’s admission process will invite more students to our campus that would otherwise deter them from other competing Universities.”

The bill titled “A resolution to co-sponsor the pilot study and modifications to existing procedures in relation to the admission process of Arkansas State University” was sponsored by

Sedman, Carlee Bird, Maddyson Lamb, Lindsey Waters, Kennedy Combs, Catherine Hernandez, and Erica Morales.

To help these new students, as first-years they would be required to meet with an assigned support assistant weekly. When they become sophomores and juniors, they must check in monthly. These assistants are part of the college the student is enrolled in.

“Current students may not see as much of the impact this year, however, for next year, this pilot will truly yield results with students in the community and around the state,” Sedman said.

The bill required a majority vote to pass. While the official tally has not been revealed yet, the bill did pass.

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