The future of higher education across San Antonio looks bright, said seven of the city’s top higher education leaders during a panel discussion on Thursday morning.
Despite upheaval stemming from state and federal policies aimed at higher ed, the presidents said that they’re optimistic about what’s ahead for their institutions — and for San Antonio.
They’ve worked together to address the area’s college attainment rate, raising it to 42% over the last several years. That’s one example of the forward momentum they’re achieving by working together, instead of competing.
“We all stand for more access,” said Vanessa Beasley, president of Trinity University. “More education for more people is good, full stop, wherever you go to school. And all of us have programs where we are thinking differently about how we provide access and how we promote awareness of that access.”
The panel, hosted by the San Antonio Report, gathered all of the city’s academic leaders:
- Hector Ochoa of Texas A&M San Antonio
- Taylor Eighmy of the University of Texas at San Antonio
- Abel Antonio Chávez of Our Lady of the Lake University
- Vanessa Beasley of Trinity University
- Winston Erevelles of St. Mary’s University
- Tom Evans of University of the Incarnate Word
- Mike Flores, chancellor of Alamo Colleges District
Leigh Munsil, San Antonio Report’s editor in chief, asked the college presidents about their takes on big regional changes, such as the recent merger of UTSA and UT Health San Antonio into UT San Antonio and recent budget cuts.
The panelists said they’re preparing for a future where the city continues to grow and they’re training the workforce needed to support it.
“(Institutions) are now measured in terms of the opportunity that we afford our students,” Eighmy said. “How quickly you graduate, how much debt you have upon graduation and the job that you land after graduation and how quickly you can pay off your debt.”
Programs like Alamo Promise — a scholarship launched by Alamo Colleges in 2020 that covers the cost of tuition and fees for qualifying high school graduates for up to three years — acted as positive disruptors in the region, causing others to develop innovative ways to expand access and affordability for students.
UTSA launched the Bold Program and TAMUSA launched its Jaguar Promise, which also cover unmet tuition and fees for qualifying first-time or transferring students. Private institutions in the region are also looking into other ways to facilitate and encourage completion.
At OLLU, officials locked in the cost of tuition for up to four years for undergraduate students.
Chavez said they are also exploring what are known as “3+2” or “4+1” programs, in which students can complete one or several degrees through partnerships between a community college or a liberal arts college and a four-year institution.
“It is clear that families and learners are wanting and needing two important variables as they seek out higher education; That’s time and the cost to credential completion,” Chavez said. “Part of our innovation is looking at absolutely both variables for the time, and accelerated degree programs.”
At Trinity, Beasley said about 98% of its students are on some form of financial aid. She pushed back on the notion of any negative disruption resulting from programs like Alamo Promise, also pointing to the need to bring awareness to the many options available to afford a college degree.
“The truth is, in this moment, we all have to innovate,” Beasley said. “We really have to think about our core mission, how we’re sticking with our values, and perhaps how we’re delivering and connecting with students in a different way. So that they all know there’s a place for them somewhere, especially in San Antonio.”
Erevelles pointed to a recent agreement between St. Mary’s University and Alamo Colleges to provide local high school teachers with free certificates and graduate degrees to teach dual credit courses as an example of the collaboration that better positions San Antonio to strengthen the pipeline to higher education.
“We’ve talked about time to completion, we’ve talked about acceleration, we’ve talked about things that facilitate transfers from the high schools. Well, great idea until you run into a shortage of teachers,” Erevelles said. “So, it is that kind of thing that happens so frequently and it’s all to make sure that San Antonio is positioned to meet the needs of the future.”
All seven higher education leaders focused on the opportunity to collaborate with one another to expand their impact further each year.
Alamo Colleges District is starting the academic year with nearly 88,000 students across its five independent colleges, all of which could sooner or later move on to the other public and private institutions across the city.
Over the next five years, Alamo Colleges’ Chancellor Flores said they expect enrollment to reach more than 100,000 students.
Fostering a continuing healthy and successful higher education environment will depend on the region’s ability to lower the achievement barriers for potential students, he said.
“We know the calculation for our students is not between; ‘Do I attend UT San Antonio or go to Incarnate Word?’ It is, ‘Can I afford to go to college?’ It is, ‘What are the opportunity costs? Do I have child care? Will I work less hours? Who’s going to help my mom pay the bills?’ Flores said. “All of those things enter into the calculus for a lot of our undergraduate students.”
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
Watch the full event:
