More states are easing the stress of the college search by letting high school students know they are promised admission before they even apply. It is a paradigm shift in the often tedious admissions process that can require students to spend lots of time and money with no guarantee of success.

States say they are hoping to keep talent close to home and develop an educated workforce. They are turning to a “direct admission” model that matches students with local colleges based on their grades and sending a powerful message that postsecondary education — whether vocational training or a bachelor’s degree — is within reach.

The number of state-run, direct admissions programs has jumped from one in 2015 to more than a dozen today, including: Idaho, Minnesota, South Dakota, Washington, Indiana, Hawaii, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Utah, Illinois, Texas, California, New York and Oregon. Five of those states adopted the policy in 2024. Several other states have introduced legislation this year, including Arkansas, or have pilot programs in the works.

While Michigan as a state does not do direct admissions, several Michigan universities are offering guaranteed admission with a GPA of 3.0 or higher as part of the Michigan Assured Admission Pact.

While individual colleges and online admissions platforms such as the Common Application have been experimenting with direct admissions for years, the increase in state-run programs could have a tremendous impact on the movement, said John Lane, vice president for academic affairs and equity initiatives at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.

“Having state higher education offices and systems on board brings scale, resources and perspective,” Lane said. “It also increases the long-term sustainability of direct admissions.”

Part of the appeal of direct admissions is that it is a race-neutral way to increase diversity.

The Biden administration had urged colleges to explore the policy after the Supreme Court in 2023 struck down the use of race-conscious affirmative action in admissions. And as the Trump administration pressures colleges and universities to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion practices, more states and individual institutions are likely to turn to direct admissions, higher education experts say.

“By being universal, direct admissions is race-blind,” said Jennifer A. Delaney, associate professor of higher education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “So in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling, it’s become attractive for states to move the needle a bit on equity measures without having a race-specific policy.”

Direct admissions programs build on guaranteed admissions policies popularized by Texas, in which high school students in the top percentage of their graduating class are automatically admitted to certain public colleges. The newer programs are more inclusive and proactive in informing students of their options and the requirements to enroll.

Still, the movement has challenges. An offer alone is not enough to get students to enroll when their ability to pay for college remains an open question. And enrollment is no guarantee of graduation.

The mechanics

State direct admissions programs vary in scope and design.

Utah’s program features all 16 of its public colleges and universities, while California’s is focused on the 10 campuses of the California State University system. Minnesota, Idaho and Wisconsin use data-sharing agreements with high schools to pull students’ transcripts for information. Connecticut and Illinois, which use the online platform Common Application for their programs, rely on self-reported student data that is later verified.

In most cases, colleges and universities are given a choice to participate and can set a GPA threshold that students need to meet to be automatically admitted. Students usually receive a letter early in their senior year with a list of schools where they are guaranteed admission and must then submit an application to the school of their choice.

The benefits

One of the big selling points for direct admissions is the way it engages first-generation students, said Stephanie Ruckel, director of strategic enrollment at Augsburg. The policy, she said, eases the fear of rejection and encourages students to ask more probing questions about whether the school is a fit.

Wendy Robinson, assistant commissioner for programs, policy and grants at the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, said direct admissions also makes clear that most colleges are eager to accept students, a reality that is lost in all of the public attention on highly selective schools.

“Students hear a lot of narratives around how hard it is to get into college,” Robinson said. “The truth is that the majority of colleges accept the majority of their applicants the majority of the time.”

To change the narrative, Minnesota set out in 2022 to include public, private and tribal colleges in the lineup of schools in its direct admissions pipeline. All of the more than 50 schools participating in the Minnesota program waive their application fees and most don’t require an essay or standardized test scores. The same is largely true for the direct admissions programs in Wisconsin, South Dakota and Idaho.

Having pioneered the direct admissions model in 2015, Idaho has fine-tuned its program. Sara Scudder at Idaho’s Office of the State Board of Education said the state has changed the criteria five times — lowering the GPA threshold and eliminating SAT requirements — simplified its online application and increased awareness through videos and social media posts.

Those efforts have increased first-time undergraduate enrollment by an average of 50 to 100 students per participating campus in Idaho, with the strongest gains at community colleges, according to a 2022 study of the state program.

Taylor Odle, assistant professor of educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and co-author of the study, said the results show that states shouldn’t solely focus on high-achieving students when designing direct admissions programs.

“This behavioral nudge is going to be most effective for the people who didn’t know that college was an option for them, and those are most often students who fall further down the academic gradient,” Odle said.

The challenges

Yolanda Watson Spiva, who runs the nonprofit Complete College America, said colleges must provide academic and social support to directly admitted students to ensure they graduate. A proponent of the admissions strategy, she said it could yield the best results as part of a continuum in college completion, not a stand-alone initiative.

“Access alone won’t address the challenges that historically disadvantaged and underrepresented students are likely to face once they arrive on campus,” she said. “This has to be holistic.”

Getting students with few financial resources to enroll remains a significant challenge for the direct admissions movement. Odle and Delaney’s study of Idaho found that its direct admissions policy had little to no effect on the enrollment of students whose household earnings were low enough to qualify for the federal Pell Grant.

A separate 2023 study conducted by the pair, using Common App data across four states, also found minimal impact on enrollment, even though the admissions policy resulted in more applications from minority, first-generation and low-income students.

State leaders say the next evolution of direct admissions is to pair admission offers with financial aid awards. That may mean using the same data that determines whether a student is qualified for admission to determine their qualification for institutional or state-based scholarships.

Texas Commissioner of Higher Education Wynn Rosser said the state is exploring possibilities as it builds out its new direct admissions initiative, which was launched in 2024 with 31 universities.

“The most significant barrier students and families tell us about is being concerned about cost, being concerned about debt,” Rosser said. “If we can send the message that there is a place for you and you can afford it, then we want to send that message early and consistently.”