HIGH TIME WE FACE THE NAKED TRUTH ABOUT TSC-UTB ADMISSIONS

"The dream is over..,
What can I say?
The dream is over...yesterday..."

By Juan Montoya
Reading the Herald's account of the end of open admissions at the University of Texas at Brownsville was like watching the proverbial cat on a hot tin roof.
While stating that "according to UT System accountability reports, UTB’s data now reads much like UTPA’s several years ago, with low retention rates and even lower 6-year graduation rates," the article never comes out and informs the reader what those rates actually are.
And, pray tell, unless you have been acquainted with the long-running debate in the community over the separation-preservation question between Texas Southmost college and the UT System, you'll never learn the full extent of the abysmal performance of the UTB over the last 20 years.
Let's get this right.
The retention rate for a freshman attending TSC-UTB is less than 50 percent. That's right. Less than half of this year's freshman class will be back next year.
That admission had to be made and put in writing when the school applied for the millions available through the Bill and Melinda Gate's Foundation.
Even though UTB officials like Provost Alan Artibise have for months been dodging the issue have to admit that of the some 2,000 freshman students admitted there needed remedial education because they aren’t college ready.
As far as graduation rates over six years, the UTB-TSC track record stinks.
Even though the Herald didn't want to publish the graduation rates over that period in the body of its article, here it is. The graduation rate is less than 17 percent over six years, one of the lowest among any college in the country.
Now, this is after 20 years of this fine "partnership" experiment.
Let's face it. Our local schools have not been preparing our students to enter the fine life of higher education. What was happening was that these students entered UTB-TSC, were diverted to remedial classes, spent their Pell Grants and other student loans, and left a few years later saddled with debt and nothing to show for it. Many were penalized after failing and were prevented from entering either TSC or UTB. They not only were not prepared to join the workforce, but also had a huge debt they had to repay.
How long could this charade continue?
UTPA in Edinburg faced the same dilemma when it had to close open admissions and they overcame the obstacles. Today, according to their spokesmen, their retention levels are rising and the number of students who have to take remedial classes is diminishing.
“There is a big disconnect and you’ll have to talk to BISD and all our other feeders about that,” Artibise told the Herald about the college-readiness of incoming students.
It will be TSC’s responsibility to help future students who want to go to college, but don’t meet UTB standards, Artibise told the daily.
“It’s not that we’re abandoning the students,” he said. “We’re saying now – through no decision of ours, this was a TSC decision – you need to turn to them that open admissions situation.”
The UTB-TSC "partnership" fairy tale is over.
For many years the community had been held in thrall by the siren song crooned by UTB-TSC president Juliet Garcia and her cronies who held up fudged graduation and attendance numbers to keep the pretense of a world-class "community university" (and their bloated salaries) alive.
It's high time this community (90 percent of the UTB students are from Cameron County) bit the bullet and turn to the task of improving the education product our local schools are turning out without expecting charitable treatment when they get to college.