The Texas Legislature has voted to cut guaranteed state university admissions for students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.

The decade-old program was designed to promote diversity on state college campuses but school officials pushed for cutting back on the number of guaranteed admissions because they said the program limited their ability to accept other students, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Last year, 81 percent of students admitted to the University of Texas, Austin, were let in under the 10 percent rule. The school had tried for years to get the Legislature to change the program because it allowed them very little flexibility in putting classes together each school year and threatened the continuation of some departments considered important that were not popular with students who gained automatic admission, the newspaper said.

The Texas Senate gave final approval Saturday to a new cap of 75 percent guaranteed admissions for an incoming class at state universities.

The change was also pushed by parents of children in schools with tougher standards, who said it was more difficult for their children to make the top 10 percent of their graduating class than it was for students in lower-performing schools.

Opponents of scaling back the program argued that it made a quality college education more accessible to minority and rural students.