San Antonio’s higher education leaders joined local workforce representatives Wednesday morning to announce a joint effort to increase the region’s educational attainment to 45% by 2030.
The goal is part of the greater:SATX’s MOMENTUM:2030 strategy, which aims to leverage local collaboration to raise the current education attainment percentage of 41.3% over the next five years.
This would mean increasing post-high school graduations and program completions in the San Antonio region by about 2% annually — adding 25,000 credentialed residents to the talent pool per year.
“What makes today especially meaningful is the alignment we are seeing across our sector,” said Sarah Carabias Rush, president and CEO of greater:SATX. “Our higher education institutions, workforce partners, civic leaders, and business community are coming together around a clear and measurable goal for our region’s future.”
The higher education institutions participating in this challenge are Alamo Colleges District, Our Lady of the Lake University, St. Mary’s University, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, Texas State University, Trinity University, University of the Incarnate Word and The University of Texas at San Antonio.
“A goal of 45%, what do you think, can we beat that goal? Alright, 50%,” Alamo Colleges District Chancellor Mike Flores said as he took the podium. His peers agreed to the offer to reach an even higher goal of educating more residents past high school.
“One of the wonderful things about San Antonio is that we work together to achieve great things for our neighbors, family and friends,” Flores added.
The 45% goal is based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey 2023 baseline data, said Romanita Matta-Barrera, chief impact officer at greater:SATX. The survey gathers data on more than 40 topics, including education, employment and income, to measure the changing needs of a region or community.
Using this data, greater:SATX compared the San Antonio region to some of its biggest competitors for employers and workforce, which include cities like Denver, Seattle and Charlotte.
An echoing message among the leaders who accepted this challenge, was that with more than 172,000 students enrolled across higher education institutions in the region, and ongoing collaboration among higher education and workforce leaders, San Antonio is well positioned to not only attain this challenge, but surpass it.
“There’s a special sauce here in San Antonio,” said UT San Antonio President Taylor Eighmy. “If you were to go to Charlotte or Denver or Seattle or Boston or the Bay Area, you would never, ever find this kind of collaboration happening between higher [education], both public and private, and economic development engines. That kind of collaboration doesn’t happen.”
Student outcomes have become increasingly important for how higher education institutions are measured at the state and federal levels. With funding attached not only to enrollment, but degree attainment and a heightened focus on high-demand, high-earnings degrees.
Eighmy believes the region fares better than others on students choosing to attend the local colleges based on high-value degree offerings and low-cost options, such as Alamo Promise and Promise to Promise transfer programs, which offers free and low-cost tuition to qualifying students who graduate high school locally and start at the district’s community colleges.
“Folks that are voting with their feet that are attending our institutions are saying, ‘Hey, this was a great experience, we really benefited from it,’” Eighmy said. “I think that’s an indication of the kinds of things that we have to pay attention to as we go forward.”
University of Incarnate Word President Thomas Evans said this relationship among higher education leaders of communication and collective work rather than competition is something that still surprises people.
“We actually meet once a month, online for an hour and we are probably each other’s best cheerleaders,” Evans said. “Reaching this regional goal will require sustained collaboration across institutions and sectors. Today, I stand with my colleagues in committing to that shared work.”
In this commitment, higher education institutions will work to add 100,000 more residents with a college degree or credential over the next five years. They will also commit to working with workforce partners to retain a greater number of those credentialed residents in well-paying jobs across the San Antonio region.
“We view education at Trinity as more than just a statistic,” said Vanessa Beasley, Trinity President. “For us, it represents the number of people prepared to lead and innovate and be agile as they respond to the world’s challenges so that they can contribute meaningfully to the communities that they choose to go to.”
Students who chose to stay in any given region, might do so for many reasons, but a competitive job market might be first on many of their lists. Ochoa, who leads the region’s youngest institution on the South Side of San Antonio, said Texas A&M-San Antonio has been working to increase access to career paths based on regional job demand and prospective jobs.
“Our goal is to begin to align what the workforce needs of San Antonio,” Ochoa said. “We also need to look at how we partner with K-12 to create a better, stronger college going culture.”
The university’s most recent assessment of talent retention showed at least 85% of their graduates remain in San Antonio post graduation, he said, and that’s a number they are hoping to maintain or increase.
One of the students who might help tip the balance over the next five years is Avery Hirsch, a 20-year-old Texas A&M- San Antonio sophomore studying cybersecurity with a minor in criminology and criminal justice.
She grew up in Cibolo, Texas, right outside of San Antonio. TAMUSA offered her the best path to her ideal career in digital forensics, and the opportunity to stay close to home, she said.
In hopes to become better acquainted with local employers and the market, Hirsh became part of the greater:SATX Alamo Fellows program, which aims to help first-generation college students gain professional development in the region.
“I do plan to stay in San Antonio, that’s my hope,” Hirsch said. “These types of opportunities have offered me positions to be in rooms with so many impactful, influential people… getting these opportunities really sets you up for success in a way that allows retention.”
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
