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Many Texas students do not believe they can afford to go to college, and first generation college goers lack ready access to information that helps their families navigate the process. IPSI college access initiatives bridge the information divide by developing easy to use financial tools, demystifying the steps necessary to apply for college, and conducting outreach to Texas high schools and communities with low college attendance rates.
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The UT Volunteer Corps for College seeks to connect faculty and staff from the nine UT academic campuses with their surrounding communities. Members of the Volunteer Corps are trained to assist with students and families from low-college going high schools with many aspects of college preparation including college admissions and financial aid paperwork. A wide variety of faculty and staff have offered their services to the Volunteer Corps. A few examples are listed below. Many of our volunteers were the first in their families to attend college. The goal of this project is to increase college-going rates in communities around the state and provide direct assistance to families with little history of college participation. Funded through a grant from The Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation (TG), the Volunteer Corps provides $1000 scholarships good for use at any institution in the country to students and schools who work with the program regularly. If you are a UT faculty or staff member who would like to participate in the Volunteer Corps, please email Emily Watson, ewatson@utsystem.edu.
Examples of our volunteers include:
Vice Chancellor, Governmental Relations
Senior Lecturer, Electrical Engineering Department
Assistant Professor, Bioengineering
AMERICORPS Vista, Student Development
Associate Professor, Political Science
Graduate Student and Teaching Assistant, Clinical Psychology
Development Associate, Office of the Vice President
PhD Candidate, History
Graduate Program Coordinator, School of Social Work
Senior Administrative Associate, Civil Engineering
Financial Analyst, Advertising
Associate Professor, Spanish
Scholarship Advisor, Office of Scholarships
Special Projects Coordinator, Division of Community Engagement
Network Specialist II, Telecommunications Services
Administrative Assistant, Occupational Therapy
Professor, Accounting and Business Law
Academic Career Advisor, Academic Advisement and Mentoring Center
Director, Financial Aid
Assistant Professor, Communications
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Café Con Leche, Coffee with Milk, is an informal forum for parents to learn more about the often overwhelming and complicated financial aid and college application process. These forums, held at schools or community centers around the State, are hosted by members of the UT Volunteer Corps. The hosts provide accurate information about financial aid and encourage parents to discuss the fears and obstacles they face when making decisions about sending their students to college. Parents who attend these meetings qualify their student to receive a $1000 scholarship good for use at any institution in the country.
Students, parents, and high school counselors have shared how attending a Café Con Leche session affected them.
- “As a student, the door has been opened to greater opportunities and I have been reassured that help really is out there.”
- A parent said, “I have learned how much aid is out there and when to apply for it.”
- “As a college advisor, I never have the opportunity to interact as in-depth as I did during the Café. I generally pour information to students and families about the college process, but to speak on an informal level about their personal fears, hesitations, and hopes for their children was quite a rewarding experience!”
- A counselor said, “The feedback we got from the parents was very good concerning the Café Con Leche. The parents had a chance to have some ‘myths’ dispelled.”
San Antonio Express - http://blogs.mysanantonio.com
Austin American Statesman - http://www.statesman.com
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This financial aid calculator provides early award estimates students can expect to receive when they complete high school and attend any UT System academic campus. TexasCollegeMoney’s customized college preparation guidance, scholarship opportunities, and links to personal assistant help give underserved low-income families confidence that college is possible and support is available. Visit http://www.texascollegemoney.org for more information.
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At the request of the National Association of State Land Grant Colleges and Universities and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, College Access Division of IPSI has developed a student financial aid College Costs Calculator for the national Voluntary System of Accountability. This program, once installed on a participating institution’s servers uses a simplified calculation of financial aid awarding methodology to estimate complete financial aid award packages using all available aid – institutional, state, and federal. There are currently over 225 higher education institutions participating in the Voluntary System of Accountability.
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The division also provides services to the Higher Education Coordinating Board related to college access. The purpose of these efforts has been to assist in creating large-scale collaborative efforts to use and share technology to promote and offer students services for statewide postsecondary opportunities. The College for Texans Web Portal project is the culmination of this work. The mission of this project is to create a one-stop-shop for all Texans to plan, apply and pay for postsecondary education. There is an urgent need for Texas state agencies, schools, and institutions of higher education to work together in innovative ways to increase participation and success in postsecondary education. The College for Texans Web portal project is bringing together a large group of stakeholders to build a technological resource to solve the problem that all Texas students, parents, counselors, and colleges confront: an overload of complex and disjointed information about college and career choices and very little direct connection to the specific services and real data required to prepare, plan and pay for a postsecondary education.
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Matt Orem, Director
702 Colorado Street, CLB 5.200
Austin, TX 78701
512-579-5020
Ruby Rivera, Statewide College Access Coordinator
512-499-4364
Emily Watson, Program Specialist
512-579-5020
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