A&M-SA to pay tuition of top 10 percent
Achiever Promise part of commitment to help students manage costs
Texas A&M University San Antonio will offer free tuition to high school seniors who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class, and to early college high school students who earn at least 30 credit hours.
The initiative, called the Achiever Promise, is under the umbrella of a university commitment to help students graduate with little to no debt, the Jaguar Excellence Guarantee. Both were introduced Tuesday at a pep rally at East Central High School.
Already, 98 percent of A&M San Antonio students receive finnacial assistance and 73 percent get enough aid to cover their entire cost of tuition, according to university officials.
The Achiever Promise is funded by the A&M System Regents Scholarship Fund, announced this summer, which pledges $100 million to the university system’s 11 campuses over the next decade. The free tuition will be available to freshmen arriving in the fall of 2021 who meet the criteria.
“It is an opportunity your parents and I could only have dreamed of,” East Central Independent School District Superintendent Roland Toscano told students at the rally, held in the high school’s Patterson Performing Arts Center.
A&M San Antonio’s affordability has been achieved by design, its president, Cynthia TenienteMatson, said during the announcement.
“We are here to serve you, our community, by providing access and a pathway to earn a degree,” she said.
The university was born out of a mission to provide a higher ed
ucation option to students in San Antonio's South Side and nearby rural areas. Before it became a stand-alone university in 2009, the first classes at A&M-San Antonio were taught at Palo Alto College under the auspices of Texas A&M University-Kingsville.
The growing campus off Loop 410 admitted only upperclassmen until 2016, when it welcomed its first freshmen. Now, it has nearly 7,000 students.
Last year, the university announced a partnership with seven high-poverty school districts, including East Central, called ASPIRE, short for A&M-SA South Bexar County ISDs Partnership to Impact Regional Equity and Excellence.
The program is working to design and operate “lab schools” in the districts, create new academic programs and fill needs in special education and teacher preparation.
Free tuition programs have become increasingly popular in recent years. The Alamo Colleges this year made tuition free to graduating seniors of public high schools in Bexar County with the lowest college-going rates. The community college district hopes to extend the Alamo Promise program, though funding is still uncertain beyond the initial cohort.
Last summer, the University of Texas flagship campus in Austin announced a $160 million tuition endowment to cover tuition and fees for 8,600 in-state undergraduates whose annual household family incomes are $65,000 or less.
A&M San Antonio officials said at the time that they were accelerating plans to extend free tuition to more of their students.