High School Seniors Opportunities for College

By Marcelino Acosta, Dec 18th 2024 

In Utah the Utah system of education now allows any student with a 2.0 GPA can go to one of the 15 colleges that are in Utah. Students that have a GPA that is lower than 2.0 can also get a list of the colleges that are available, but they would need to raise their GPA to 2.0 to get the list of colleges. 

This was made to allow high school students to get a higher level of education without the person's GPA being high or low. This policy wants to give opportunities to the people that don’t want to show how hard they can work in high school and to give them more skills, and to increase employment levels for the future. 

This new policy applies to many of the public universities, colleges, and tech schools. This policy doesn't apply for public colleges like the University of Utah and Utah State Universities because they have harder admission processes to get into the schools, and they require a higher GPA.  

The University of Utah has their own admission process called “Utah Direct” which wants to give 5,000 students that have a GPA higher than 3.5 access to go to the University of Utah. 

The schools that are granted to people with 2.0 GPA or higher are Weber State University, Southern state university, Utah valley university, Salt Lake Community College, Dixie State University, Bridgerland Technical College, Davis Technical College Mountainland Technical College, Ogden-weber Technical College, Tooele Technical College, Uintah Basin Technical College, Snow College, and College of Eastern Utah.  

These different colleges offer different programs that can help give students career paths they want to explore or pursue. These colleges also provide financial aid for the people who can't go to the colleges.