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The summer before Xavier Daniels’ senior year was all about fun. He traveled to Japan and New York, and visited his family in Massachusetts.
But this summer was different. The 18-year-old said that when he graduated from Leander High School, he felt like he was officially starting his real life.
“My friends and I would tell each other after we graduated, it’s like ‘tutorial complete’ – now the real game begins,” he said.
And Daniels is excited about what lies ahead. He is one of 4,813 local students participating in the program. Austin Community College Free Tuitionwhich will launch during the fall 2024 semester that began Monday. The pilot program offers free tuition to local high school graduates.
Daniels said participating was a “no-brainer.”
“I was considering what I wanted to do for college and that really seemed like the best option, honestly,” she said.
Hundreds of other Leander graduates agreed. According to data compiled by ACC in early August, Leander Independent School District (ISD) has the second-highest number of graduates participating in the program, behind only Austin ISD, which has more than 500 graduates participating.
In total, high school graduates from more than 20 public school districts in the service area ACC students are benefiting from the program. So are 72 home-schooled students, 249 charter school graduates, and 104 students who earned their GED as of July 31, 2023.
According to data ACC shared with KUT on Friday, more than half of the participants in the free tuition program are women. Fifty-three percent are Hispanic, 30 percent are white, seven percent are Black and nearly five percent are Asian.
ACC says the program is the driving force behind a significant increase in enrollment during the fall 2024 semester.
‘Let’s see if the college attendance rate changes’
ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart said the goal of offering free tuition is to make college more accessible, especially for students who might not otherwise have attended college. He noted that the percentage of Central Texas high school graduates who go on to college has declined over the past 10 years.
“A decade ago, 60% of students who finished high school went on to university,” he said. “Now, a decade later, only 42% do.”
Lowery-Hart said ACC worked with Trellis Strategies to find out why this number has been trending downward. It found that 58% of prospective ACC students said the cost of tuition and fees was a barrier to enrollment.
“Affordability is one of the main reasons students graduate and don’t go anywhere. So this seemed like the perfect group to try out [la matrícula gratuita]“We will see if the rate of college attendance changes,” he said.
The pilot program offers students free tuition and fee waivers for three years, but can be extended up to five years if the student pursues one of the bachelor’s degrees offered by ACC.
Something that makes the free tuition program unique compared to other similar initiatives is that it is what is known as a “first dollar” program. This means that the university fully covers the cost of tuition and fees up front, so that any other financial aid students receive, such as tuition and fees, is not covered by the program. Federal Pell Grantscan use it for other essential purposes.
“If you qualify for Pell, you can use all of your financial aid for transportation, health care, child care, housing and living expenses,” Lowery-Hart explains. “That really addresses the deeper issues of inequality and affordability.”
College affordability isn’t just a problem in the Austin area; it’s a national problem. And as college has gotten more expensive, Lowery-Hart said, people have become more skeptical about the value of higher education. Gallup poll released last month found that 36% of respondents had a lot of confidence in American higher education, while 32% had little or no confidence.
“I think because college has become so unaffordable, families are wondering if they can afford it and if it’s worth the investment,” she said.
Lowery-Hart said she hopes making college more affordable will help reverse that trend. At the same time, the job market is changing and employers are looking for qualifications, not just college degrees.
“We have a wide range of programs that allow students to acquire a skill, earn a certificate, earn an associate degree,” he said.
That’s something that appealed to Daniels. She said her father and mother — who is an ACC professor — originally thought she would start at ACC and then transfer to a four-year university. And that’s still on the table, but she wants to see if she’s closer to her career goals after earning an associate’s or college degree.
Daniels, who produces music, is pursuing an associate’s degree at ACC. He said he’ll decide if it makes sense to transfer to a four-year university if he’s not on track to achieve his career goals.
Daniels, who has been producing music for about three years, is currently pursuing a specialization in digital composition within the Audio Technology and Industry program.
“I make music, I work with Christian artists, I make my own beats and I put them out on all the platforms and stuff like that,” he said. “And it’s fun, it’s like my passion.”
So not only was the tuition price right, but ACC also had the type of program Daniels was looking for.
“That digital composition track for the associate degree really resonated with what I wanted to do, and it’s exactly where I want to go,” he said. “The fact that ACC has that and it’s so close [de casa] “It’s perfect for me.”
Possible financial risk
The timing of the new tuition-free program is no coincidence. It comes after Texas lawmakers passed bipartisan legislation in 2023 that reworks how the state funds community colleges. Essentially, the best student outcomes lead to increased funding. These outcomes include the number of students who complete their degrees or transfer to four-year universities.
“The new funding model that funds outcomes is the genesis of how we are paying for this pilot,” Lowery-Hart said.
He said ACC got about $7 million more from the state, which is about what the pilot program costs.
“We’re really taking the state’s investment and reinvesting it back into our community,” she said. “I’m excited that we’re being funded based on outcomes and that this affordability plan is testing our ability to improve our outcomes.”
ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart said one goal of the tuition-free program is to attract students who might not otherwise have pursued higher education.
Executive Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Neil Vickers said another reason ACC was able to launch the pilot program is that tuition represents only a small portion of the university’s overall funding. Tuition and fees – which administrators They haven’t gone up in 11 years – represent less than 15% of the university’s budget, he said. This has made it possible to offer free tuition; it is easier to make up for the loss of income from other sources.
But Vickers said offering a tuition-free program comes with some financial risk.
“If we have enough new students and we have to add teachers and advisors, that has a cost,” he said. “And it would be a new cost, but we’re not putting in any tuition money to help offset that cost. That would be the budget risk.”
Vickers said ACC has the resources to fund at least the five-year duration of the pilot project.
“In any case, we can afford it. If it ends up being too expensive, we have done it as a pilot project, we will modify it and we will see how we do it in the future,” he said. “But we are confident that we have good estimates of the cost. We know that we are doing something unique.”
The foundations for a future without tuition fees
Lowery-Hart said if the program is successful, she would like to eventually see tuition-free tuition for more ACC students. She believes the Austin area has the resources to make that a reality.
“I look forward to being part of a university that believes in our community so much that we want to stop charging tuition if we can do so,” she said.
The five-year pilot project will provide key data on whether free tuition is actually helping more students stay in school and complete their programs at a faster rate. Vickers said that data will play a direct role in determining what priorities the university funds in the coming years.
“I think as we get more data, and assuming it’s positive data, the likelihood of this becoming a higher priority will increase,” he said.
Daniels, for his part, encourages eligible students to consider participating in the program.
“If it’s your only option, by all means take it,” he said. “Even if it’s not your only option, it’s still a great choice.”
Correction: This story originally said ACC worked with the Trellis Foundation to investigate why students were not pursuing college. In reality, ACC worked with Trellis Strategies, a separate entity from the Trellis company.
