An estimated 12,645 students will be attending community college tuition-free in San Antonio this fall, a record number participating in the Alamo Promise program, which expanded last year to include all high school graduates in the region.
Over 9,500 students participated across the Alamo Colleges last fall, including the largest incoming class of 6,500 new students.
For the first time, graduates from charter schools, home schools and private schools are eligible for the program, which provides tuition and fees for all students to attend two years of college after other financial aid is applied.
Last July, college officials anticipated an additional 575 students from the expansion of the program.
One newly eligible high school, Great Hearts Northern Oaks, which had a graduating class of 77 seniors this year, helped connect more than a dozen students with college opportunities through the program.
Among them was Evan Fischer, who plans to attend the San Antonio College nursing program with the funds.
“It opened up the ways that I could become a nurse, because I knew I wanted to be a nurse, I just didn’t know how,” he said. “I started looking at what the … cheapest options were because I knew I didn’t want to pull out any student debt.”
Fischer was also looking at other local programs but saw Alamo Colleges as the best option once he found out about the tuition opportunity. He told the San Antonio Report that he was looking forward to the flexibility he would have and the medical expertise he would learn.
With the unexpected tuition help, Evan’s mother, Laura Fischer, plans to use the college funding she and her husband had saved for his continuing education instead.
“It makes a huge difference,” she said. “I do get to take that money that we saved for him and now apply it towards those more expensive years.”
William Rutheford, the executive director of Great Hearts San Antonio, said in a statement that the program is necessary as the price of higher education increases for students.
“This is a win-win relationship for Alamo Colleges and our scholars, who are poised to do great things in the world,” he said.
The record attendance comes at the same time the community college district announced an additional Promise-to-Promise partnership with Texas A&M University-San Antonio, allowing select students to continue their education tuition-free for an additional two years. A similar arrangement already exists with UTSA.
The transfer agreement will allow eligible students to start at any of the five Alamo Colleges and seamlessly transfer to TAMU-SA to complete a four-year degree while having educational costs covered at both institutions.
The new agreement builds on the long-running Alamo Promise program and TAMU-SA’s recently launched Jaguar Promise program, which provides free tuition, fees and a $300 book stipend per semester for eligible first-year and transfer students. To be eligible, students must have earned an associate degree or 60 credit hours and have a family-adjusted gross income of $70,000 or less.
Alamo Colleges District Chancellor Mike Flores said the two institutions are “removing financial barriers and opening doors for our students to achieve their academic and career goals.”
An earlier transfer agreement was signed between the two institutions in 2019.
Alamo Colleges transfer student Aubri Lalinde will be among the first eligible students admitted to TAMU-SA under the newest program, according to a press release from the college.
The first-generation college student, who recently graduated from Palo Alto College with an associate of arts in business administration, said she was thrilled when she learned about Promise-to-Promise as a way to further her education and help her and her son form a better future.
According to a joint press release, about 75% of Alamo Colleges students transfer to four-year universities to complete their degrees, including 2,007 transferring to TAMU-SA in the 2023 academic year.
Over the past five years, approximately 83% of the students who transferred to TAMU-SA were affiliated with Alamo Colleges, according to the university.
College leaders have worked for years to develop a “K-20 pipeline” that would bolster the workforce and ensure access to higher education for all. TAMU-SA President Salvador Hector Ochoa said the new initiative continues the work of removing barriers.
“The Promise-to-Promise partnership is a product of our mutual commitment to opening as many pathways and points of entry for students as possible to put their academic goals within reach,” he said.
Photo Editor Scott Ball contributed reporting to this article.
