UT Austin does spend tens of millions of dollars for students in the top 6% who aren’t college ready and need remedial classes/related academic support. I expect some of the TN publics already do this to some extent, but that might have to be on a greater scale if the proposal passes. To be clear, I don’t think UT Austin making that investment is wrong, at all.
Separately…and generally, I don’t love auto admit (based on GPA/rank) because of the behaviors it can create at the HS level. Behaviors like a high level of competitiveness among students (rather than incenting collaboration), grade grubbing, overloading on dual enrollment classes to juice GPAs, etc…all things that are currently present in many Texas high schools, especially the more well resourced ones.
I do understand the desire to keep strong students in-state…I live in Illinois which has negative net student migration, and research shows that students who leave the state for college tend to not return after college. Tennessee has positive net student migration. Where are students moving to attend college? - USAFacts
Often the reason that students leave their state is because of money…strong students might be able to get a lower cost option elsewhere, and instituting an auto admit policy doesn’t address that problem. In TN, college affordability is likely a greater impediment to enrolling some stronger in-state students (whether they leave the state, or don’t attend a 4 year residential college at all), than is the issue of acceptance to any of the TN publics for the top 10% of each high school’s graduating class. I do wish every state would replicate TN’s free CC model.