Southern University Abandons Plan to Tighten Admissions Standards

In 2010 Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, announced plans to toughen its academic standards for admission. Applicants were to have been required to maintain a 2.5 grade point average in high school, an increase from the current 2.0 standard. Also, the minimum score on the ACT college entrance examination was to be increased from 20 to 22 on the test’s 1 to 36 scoring scale.

The new standards were initially postponed until this year. But now university system president Ronald Mason Jr. has shelved the plan for the foreseeable future. President Mason feared that the tougher standards would lead to a decline in enrollments. This would reduce tuition revenue and place further pressure on the university’s tight budget.

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