Austin Community College's Board of Trustees has approved a pilot program to offer free tuition to local high school graduates.
The initiative, officially known as the College Affordability Plan, will offer free tuition and general fees to high school seniors in the ACC service area who graduated from public, private and charter schools after July 1, 2023. Students who were homeschooled or completed their GED are also eligible. High schoolers who live in the service area, but not the taxing district, will still need to pay the out-of-district fee. The pilot program begins in fall 2024 and will last for five years.
“People are experiencing a life that’s not affordable, and they can’t find a way to climb out and up,” Lowery-Hart said in a statement. “It’s not about getting students in the door. It’s about eliminating barriers so that they not only come, they persist, they graduate, and they enter our local workforce with the skills and talents our community needs.”
“First-dollar programs really help address issues of equity in terms of access to higher education pathways,” Gonzalez said. Austin Community College estimates the free tuition program will costs $7.5 million in its first year. He said the hope is that free tuition could eventually be offered to adult learners like his mom, who got a certified nurse aide degree and then became a licensed vocational nurse.