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Returning students to the Austin Community College District who were enrolled in classes during spring 2024 will receive a scholarship that covers tuition for the final 15 credit hours of their associate’s degree. The initiative is part of a larger free tuition pilot at the district.
Austin Community College District
Around half of students at Texas community colleges in fall 2023 said personal finances impacted their ability to concentrate on schoolwork, according to a May report from Trellis Strategies.
To help accommodate learners who are close to completion of a credential, Austin Community Colleges’ Board of Trustees approved a new scholarship that covers the final 15 credit hours for degree seekers.
The Affordability Scholarship will be available to learners enrolled in an associate degree program as of this past spring to promote completion and address basic needs insecurity.
“Our goal is to help students finish what they started,” said ACC chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart in a July 1 press release. “It is our responsibility to make sure students have what they need to be successful.”
What’s the need: The cost of higher education is a growing concern for students and young people.
A February study by Morning Consult found 25 percent of Gen Z adults are “barely scraping by” and 13 percent are “completely underwater” financially. Recent data from Ellucian found 76 percent of students said the amount of financial aid they received impacted their college decision.
The cost of tuition isn’t the only bill students are worried about; Trellis Strategies’ 2023 Student Financial Wellness Survey found 58 percent of students nationally faced challenges with basic needs insecurity including food, housing and other essentials.
Trellis’s Texas community college study found just under one-third of students say their institution is not aware of their financial hardships, and a similar number had not spoken with anyone at their institution about their financial struggles. At ACC, student leaders shared that they were experiencing food and housing insecurity, which pushed staffers to focus on financial aid opportunities to support them, Lowery-Hart said.
In 2021, nearly 473,000 Texas community college students received an average emergency aid award of $1,400 from the federal Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF), making them less likely to receive aid and recipients of smaller aid amounts compared to their four-year peers.
Financial aid not only supports students’ wellness but also can directly impact their retention and completion. One 2023 survey of community college students by New America found that almost half (49 percent) of students who dropped out before earning a credential did so because they had to work, and 37 percent said they could no longer afford their programs.
Dollars at work: Students enrolled as of spring 2024 who have completed 45 credit hours within two years will be eligible for the scholarship. That’s more than 200,000 learners, according to the colleges’ website. Eligible students will automatically receive the tuition credit and will have one academic year to apply it to their courses.
The district expects the program to cost $12.75 million, which will be funded with existing dollars in the reserves budget.
The Affordability Scholarship is part of a larger initiative to provide free or low-cost tuition at ACC.
Starting this fall, any local high school graduate (including those who were homeschooled) from the Class of 2024 or those who earned their GED after July 2023 are eligible for the free tuition pilot, which covers three years of tuition and general fees. ACC is the only district in the state of Texas offering first-dollar tuition waivers in this manner.
The district estimates the pilot will cost around $7 million in the first year and plans to use $6.8 million in additional funding from House Bill 8 to cover operations, freeing up the budget to cover other costs of the program, according to the ACC website.
The Affordability Scholarship provides currently enrolled students a similar opportunity for free tuition, something that was important to ACC’s board.
Additionally, the district will expand its Student Emergency Fund to $500,000, increasing the sums students can receive for immediate financial support. Just under two-thirds of Texas community college students said they would have difficulty finding $500 in cash or credit in case of an emergency, and 26 percent said they would be unable to find that money, according to Trellis’s research.
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