Will free tuition help more students pursue higher ed? Austin Community College hopes so.

The summer before Xavier Daniels’ senior year was all about having fun. He traveled to Japan and New York and visited family in Massachusetts.

But this summer was different. The 18-year-old said when he graduated from Leander High School, it felt like real life was officially beginning.

“Me and my friends were saying to each other after we graduated, it’s like ‘tutorial complete’ – now the real game starts,” he said.

And Daniels is excited about what’s ahead. He’s one of 4,813 local students taking part in Austin Community College’s Free Tuition program, which is launching during the 2024 fall semester that starts Monday. The pilot program offers free tuition to local high school grads.

Daniels said participating was a “no-brainer.”

“I was considering what I wanted to do for college and that really seemed like the best option, honestly,” he said.

Hundreds of other graduates from Leander High agreed. According to data ACC compiled at the beginning of August, Leander ISD has the second-highest number of graduates participating in the program, behind only Austin ISD, which has over 500 grads taking part.

 

Altogether, high school graduates from more than 20 public school districts in ACC’s service area are taking advantage of the program. So are 72 homeschooled students, 249 charter school graduates and 104 students who earned their GED on or after July 31, 2023.

According to data ACC shared with KUT on Friday, more than half of the participants in the free tuition program are women. Fifty-three percent are Hispanic, 30 percent are white, 7 percent are Black and nearly 5 percent are Asian.

ACC said the program is the driving force behind significantly higher enrollment during the 2024 fall semester.

‘Let’s see if it changes the college-going rate’

ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart said the goal behind offering free tuition is to make college more accessible, especially to students who might not have otherwise pursued it. He pointed out the percentage of Central Texas high school graduates pursuing higher education has dropped over the last 10 years.

“A decade ago, if you graduated high school, 60 percent of those high school students went to college,” he said. “Now, a decade later, only 42 percent are.”

Lowery-Hart said ACC worked with the Trellis Foundation to figure out why this number has been trending down. The organization seeks to increase the number of low-income students and students of color pursuing postsecondary education. It found 58 percent of prospective ACC students said the cost of tuition and fees was a barrier to enrollment.

“So affordability is a big reason why students are graduating and not going anywhere. And so this seemed like the perfect group to pilot (free-tuition) with,” he said. “Let’s see if it changes the college-going rate.”

The pilot program gives students free tuition and waives fees for three years, but that can be extended for up to five years if a student pursues one of the bachelor’s degrees ACC offers.

Something that makes the free tuition program unique compared to similar initiatives is that it’s what’s known as a “first-dollar” program. That means the college fully covers the cost of tuition and fees on the front end so any other financial aid students receive, such as Federal Pell Grants, can be used on other essentials.

“If you’re full Pell-eligible, you get to use all of your financial aid for transportation and health care, and child care and housing and living expenses,” Lowery-Hart said. “That really tackles the deeper issues of inequity and affordability.”

College affordability isn’t just an issue in the Austin area; it’s a national issue one. And as college has gotten more expensive, Lowery-Hart said, people have become more skeptical of the value of higher education. A Gallup poll released last month found 36 percent of respondents had a lot of confidence in U.S. higher education, while 32 percent had little or none.

“I think because college has become so unaffordable, families are questioning whether they can afford it and whether it’s worth the investment,” he said.

Lowery-Hart said he hopes making college more affordable will help reverse that trend. At the same time, he said, the labor market is shifting and employers are looking for skills – not just bachelor’s degrees.

“We have a wide range of programs that allow students to just get a skill, to get a certificate, to get an associate’s degree,” he said.

That is something that appealed to Daniels. He said originally his dad and mom – who is an ACC professor – thought he would start at ACC and then transfer to a four-year university. He said that’s still on the table, but he wants to see if he’s closer to his career goals after getting an associate’s degree.

Daniels, who has been producing music for about three years now, is pursuing the digital composition specialization within the Audio Technology and Industry program.

“I make music, I work with Christian artists, I make my own beats and release them on all platforms and stuff like that,” he said. “And it’s fun, that’s like my passion.”

So not only was the price of tuition right, but ACC also had the type of program Daniels was looking for.

“That digital composition track for the associate’s degree really resonated with what I wanted to do, and it’s exactly where I want to go,” he said. “The fact that ACC has that and it’s so close (to home) is perfect for me.”

Potential financial risk

The timing of the new free tuition program is no coincidence. It comes after Texas lawmakers passed bipartisan legislation in 2023 reworking how the state funds community colleges. Essentially, better student outcomes lead to more funding. Those outcomes include the number of students completing degrees or transferring to four-year universities.

“The new funding model that funds outcomes is the genesis of how we’re paying for this pilot,” Lowery-Hart said.

He said ACC got an additional $7 million or so from the state, which is about what the pilot program costs.

“We’re truly taking the state’s investment and reinvesting it back in our community,” he said. “I’m excited that we’ll be funded on outcomes and that this affordability plan tests our ability to improve our outcomes.”

Executive Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration Neil Vickers said another reason ACC was in the position to launch the pilot is because tuition accounts for only a small portion of the college’s overall funding. Tuition and fees – which trustees haven’t raised in 11 years – make up less than 15 percent of the college’s budget, he said. That helped make it possible to offer free tuition; it’s easier to make up the lost revenue from other sources.

But Vickers said there is some financial risk involved in offering a free tuition program.

“If we have enough new students that show up and we have to add faculty and add advisers, well, there’s a cost to that,” he said. “And it would be a new cost, but we’re not bringing any tuition dollars to help offset that cost. That would be the budget risk here.”

Vickers said ACC has the resources to fund at least the five-year duration of the pilot.

“In really any scenario we can afford to do this. If it ends up being wildly costly, we did it as a pilot, we’ll tweak (it) and we’ll figure out how we do it going forward,” he said. “But we feel very confident that we have good projections on what the cost will be. We just know we are doing something fairly unique.”

The groundwork for a tuition-free future

Lowery-Hart said if the program is successful, he would like to eventually make tuition free for more ACC students. He said he thinks the Austin area has the resources to make this a reality.

“I yearn to be a part of a college that believes so much in our community that we want to stop charging tuition if we can do that,” he said.

The five-year pilot will provide key data on whether free tuition is actually helping more students stay in school and complete their programs at a faster rate. Vickers said that data will play a direct role in determining what priorities the college funds in the years ahead.

“I think as we get more data, and assuming that’s positive data, then it increases the chance that this becomes a higher priority,” he said.

Daniels, for his part, encourages eligible students to consider participating in the program.

“If it’s your only option, of course take it,” he said. “Even if it’s not your only option, it’s still a great choice.”

This story was produced as part of the Austin Monitor’s reporting partnership with KUT.

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