Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

In anticipation of the University of Texas Board of Regents meeting of May 10, Senator Eliot Shapleigh sent the chancellor a letter requesting that the system set up a commission to study the low graduation rates at UTEP. The chancellor responded by saying it would be discussed at the May meeting.

Here is a portion of the letter Shapleigh sent to the Board:

Over the last two years, our office has led state efforts to measure college and university
undergraduate performance. As you may know, U.S. News and World Report has long published
performance measures for the 1,361 colleges and universities of America. To launch the Texas college and university accountability initiative, we authored and passed S.B. 286, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Sunset Bill, and for the first time, set performance standards for Texas colleges and universities.

As a result, the University of Texas System (UT System) published its first performance
report, and other similar performance reviews have been done of Texas universities. In addition, the University of Texas System engaged the Washington Advisory Group to baseline UT system
components to see what investment was needed with respect to attaining Tier I status.
What is striking about all these performance measures is that University of Texas-El Paso
(UTEP) ranks among the lowest in the country in graduation rates and among the highest in the country in remediation rates. The result is that UTEP serves as a constriction in the academic pipeline for El Paso students to achieve college graduation and success. Nearly all UT System Border universities present a similar challenge, but none more so or dramatically than UTEP.

To read the rest of the letter to the UT System, click on the PDF file.