This story has been updated.
Tuition assistance, high school partnerships and new programs have fueled record enrollment at colleges and universities across the San Antonio area this year, with more predicted in the years to come. That could be a boon for the economy, workforce participation and educational attainment in the future, according to college leaders who spoke to the San Antonio Report.
Promise programs, which pay for student fees and tuition, bolstered enrollment at UTSA and the five colleges that make up the Alamo Colleges District, according to numbers provided by the schools.
At the five Alamo Colleges, a record-breaking 70,000 students enrolled, with 14,000 of those enrolling in college for the first time.
The Alamo Promise program is credited with breaking admissions records at Alamo Colleges, as more than 6,000 new first-year participants registered for the fall semester, the highest-ever number of freshmen enrolled.
Mike Flores, the district’s chancellor, said the overall growth of enrollment tracks with the gradual expansion of Alamo Promise, which covers fees and tuition for Bexar County high school students.
“We started four years ago at 25 high schools and then we stair-stepped each year,” Flores said. “It is now countywide, [including] any graduating high school senior from a public high school, from a private school, parochial and even homeschool students.”
In addition to exceeding new student enrollment records, continuing student enrollment increased by over 8% this year, compared to a 1% decrease last year.
Another area of growth for the Alamo Colleges has been dual enrollment programs, where another 14,000 students are taking classes at one of the five colleges while still enrolled in high school, according to Flores.
The numbers buck national trends, where growth in community college enrollment has slowed or turned into declines in several areas.
With more students attending college classes, Flores and other college leaders see an opportunity to increase college attainment for the region, which is currently around 27%.
“I think our challenge and opportunity is to create more credentialed talent in the community,” he said. “Because that ensures economic and social mobility for our students, their families, and then largely for the community.”
UTSA welcomed 6,000 new first-year students, according to a preliminary analysis of enrollment data, a 3% increase over last fall and contributing to 34,864 students enrolled overall, a 1.5% increase from last fall.
Over 500 students entered the UTSA Bold Promise program this fall, bringing the total number of currently enrolled Bold Promise students to over 1,800.
Lynn Barnes Jr., the senior vice provost for strategic enrollment, said in a university press release that the increases are a credit to the promise program and improvements to the admissions process, student success initiatives, targeted marketing campaigns and new degree offerings at all levels.
Salvador Hector Ochoa, Texas A&M University-San Antonio’s new president, also credited a slew of new programs when explaining the record-breaking enrollment of 7,619 students at the young campus on the South Side.
Overall enrollment grew 4% since fall 2022, while graduate enrollment had a 28% increase with the addition of several programs.
“Not many institutions are having that level of growth,” Ochoa said. “When I look at the … trajectory of this institution, I mean, to have in the first 14 years 39 undergraduate programs and 23 graduate programs, it’s phenomenal.”
Programs added in the last year include a master’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in cybersecurity. Those are just a glimpse into the future of the institution, Ochoa said.
Total enrollment increased in spite of a slight downturn in first-time students, which a college spokesman attributed to the lack of student housing.
A new dorm under construction will double the size of student housing by the summer of 2024, however, and a promise program mirroring those at UTSA and Alamo Colleges is also expected to turbocharge enrollment in the coming years.
The University of the Incarnate Word, a private Catholic University, also welcomed its largest first-year class following a slump from the COVID pandemic.
The bounce back and growth are a departure from national trends among schools with religious affiliations, with many similar institutions seeing calamitous declines in enrollment — and some closing doors as a result.
John Bury, the chief of staff and vice president for strategy and enrollment at UIW, said the location and program offerings have helped attract students in the last two years.
“Some of that was pent-up demand from the previous years,” he said. “But some of that’s just the institution continuing to make a name for itself, especially as it opened the School of Medicine, right before COVID.”
Students that attend UIW can enter as undergraduates and remain at the school for advanced medical degrees, Bury said, which is attractive to a “younger population that’s really engaged with social justice and environmental issues and well-being issues.”
This year’s growth continues a trend seen before the pandemic, with the second-largest class entering the school in 2019, according to Bury.
While Bexar County students still make up the majority of the students attending the school, Bury said the university is also starting to gain name recognition in other major Texas cities, including Houston, Dallas and Austin.
Unlike other states, like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, which are seeing declining enrollment and closures of private religious colleges, Bury said, “Texas is a demographic powerhouse,” priming the institution for growth.
Our Lady of the Lake University, another Catholic university in San Antonio, reported a drop in overall enrollment since last year, from 2,326 to 2,096 students, with master’s students making up for much of the decrease.
Another recruitment factor that is attracting students to UIW, Bury said, is the ability of students to study in multicultural and global communities, with campuses in Mexico and San Antonio, as well as a study center in Strasbourg, France.
“If you were to look at the schools that have closed over the last couple of years, they tend to be smaller … Catholic institutions or religiously affiliated schools,” Bury said. “We’re immune to that. We’re well-situated with a lot of vibrant degree programs in a really good community to continue that growth.”
This story has been updated to correct that graduate enrollment at Texas A&M University-San Antonio saw a 28% increase.
