This story has been updated.
All Bexar County high school graduates are now eligible to attend one of the Alamo Colleges District’s five campuses tuition-free this fall after an expansion of the Alamo Promise program to charter schools, private schools and home schools.
The initiative, which began in 2019, covers the total cost of tuition and required fees for new graduates from participating high schools seeking an academic certificate or associate degree at one of the five colleges in the Alamo Colleges District.
“Our challenge as a community in San Antonio, in the region, is that we don’t have enough credentialed talent,” Alamo Colleges Chancellor Mike Flores said. “So if we want to be competitive as a community, and if we want to ensure a better life, economic and social mobility for individuals, then we needed to do something.”
Alamo Promise is just one part of what Flores calls the district’s “moonshot to end intergenerational poverty through education.”
The program has expanded each year after starting with just 25 high schools. Nearly 3,000 students participated in the fall of 2020, with a dip during COVID to around 2,547 and 3,948 during the third year of the program.
Its most recent expansion was approved as part of a $503 million operating budget that also included pay raises for employees and the expansion of other services. That was bolstered by a change in the way community colleges are funded, which occurred during the last regular legislative session.
Between charter, private and home schools, another 575 students are being targeted, according to Stephanie Vasquez , the chief program officer for Alamo Promise.
“We’re at the point now where we’re fully at scale,” she said. “Not only are we serving a critical mass of schools but essentially, if you are a recent high school graduate in Bexar County, you can come to any one of the Alamo Colleges and be a promise scholar and not have to worry about financial burden when it comes to your tuition and fees.”
Alamo Promise will only cover courses that are part of a student’s Course Program of Study (CPOS), which is a federal requirement stating that only courses that count toward a degree or certificate can be considered when calculating student’s federal financial aid eligibility. Due to this requirement, if a student takes courses that are not on their official degree plan, it could result in receiving less federal financial aid and having to pay for courses out-of-pocket. Visit here for more CPOS information.
The program pays for up to three years of tuition and fees. One year of tuition and fees at St. Philips College is $3,112.00 on average, although that can vary depending on the program you are part of and how many credits you take.
Alamo Promise is a “last-dollar” funding program, meaning the college considers first federal and state financial aid awards that a student is eligible for, such as a federal Pell Grant, with funding each student receives varying based on individual financial aid awards. The program then covers the remaining costs of tuition and required fees including special tuition and the following required fees for student activity fee, campus access, and international education.
The program does not pay for other college-going expenses, including but not limited to: instructional materials costs not covered by financial aid, textbooks, technology equipment, transportation and housing, according to the program website.
The need for this expansion came from examining the universe of private, charter, and homeschooled populations, Vasquez said, adding that low college-going rates are reflective of traditional public schools.
“And we see that reinforced by the lagging college-going rates that are still present in the county,” she said.
The move is also significant as districts face declining enrollment, with a sizable portion of students moving into public charter schools or other types of education. A recent analysis by the San Antonio Independent School District, for example, found that 10,000 students who live in the district’s boundaries are currently attending charter schools.
Students don’t have to meet GPA or income requirements to qualify for the Alamo Promise program, ensuring that students can enroll in college easily.
“What we ask students to do is during their senior year of high school [is to] save their seat, that lets us know they’ve raised their hand, they’re interested in coming to college,” Vasquez said. “And that gets us going and all of our frontline teams to work with them to submit their admissions application so that they can be admitted to one of the Alamo Colleges, and they can submit and complete their financial aid application.”
Students must also complete registration at one of the Alamo Colleges to attend the fall semester immediately following their high school graduation, according to a Frequently Asked Questions page for the program.
The process is in place to “increase the college going culture of having intentional conversations.”
Once students are enrolled, they are expected to maintain satisfactory academic progress, Vasquez said.
The funding for the Alamo Promise program comes from a combination of public, private, and institutional funding sources, including federal and state aid and personal philanthropic and corporate gifts.
Flores said the program was designed to be sustainable and have funds to offer in perpetuity for the community.
Several four-year institutions have partnered with the district to provide collaborative tuition-free programs beyond two-year degrees, like the promise-to-promise program, which allows eligible students to start at any of the five Alamo Colleges and then transfer to UTSA to complete a four-year degree while having educational costs covered at both institutions.
The Alamo Promise program has been successful in terms of persistence and retention rates, with Alamo Promise students performing on par with or exceeding other first-time college populations according to Flores.
“We saw actually that the [Free Application For Federal Student Aid] FAFSA completion rate in San Antonio was one of the highest nationwide as opposed to other communities,” Flores said. “So that’s a really promising proof point.”
Unlike past expansions, which included specific eligible high schools, a list of charter and private schools was not approved. Instead, an application is expected to open for students on a first-come, first-served basis in early August.
