ATLANTA (AP) – The University of Georgia and Georgia Tech are fighting a proposal to make them favor in-state residents in early admissions, saying a state senator’s proposal would degrade their ability to recruit top out-of-state students and maintain their national reputations.
Sen. Brandon Beach, an Alpharetta Republican, is pushing Senate Bill 282, which would require Georgia’s four top universities to admit at least 90% Georgians during early admission periods. Beach said during a hearing Thursday that UGA and Georgia Tech are denying admission to too many high achieving students during their early admission periods, and too many are leaving the state.
“I just think that is unacceptable, that we’re not taking our own bright (students) over someone from out of state,” Beach told the Senate Higher Education Committee in a Thursday hearing. “We’re spending $100,000, K through 12, educating our kids here, and then we’re letting them to go out of state if they can’t get in one of these two universities that they really want to go to.”
It’s an election-year bill aimed at the college anxieties of parents in Beach’s affluent suburban district. Beach says the bill is about UGA and Georgia Tech, although it would also apply to Augusta University and Georgia State University. The state classifies those four schools as research universities.
The committee didn’t vote on the bill, and it’s unclear if it will resurface, considering the heavy opposition from UGA President Jere Morehead and Georgia Tech President Angel Cabrera.