AUSTIN – It could be that a pastry and a cup of java help forge the college path for a future math whiz from Lytle or gifted flute player from Fabens.
Beginning this academic year, the University of Texas System will be sponsoring informal coffee-and-pastry discussions for parents of prospective UT System institution students across the state.
The program – called Café con Leche (coffee with milk) and coordinated by the UT System’s Institute for Public School Initiatives (IPSI) – targets parents whose children have high financial need and who attend high schools that historically have had low college attendance rates.
The Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. in September awarded the UT System $258,805 to launch the program, which has identified 130 high schools in Texas with low college-going rates and high concentrations of low-income students. The schools dot the Texas landscape, from urban areas to rural settings (Lytle is southwest of San Antonio while Fabens is south of El Paso).
“Many times, there are parents who know almost nothing about test prep or financial aid – or how they will ever find the resources to send their children to college,” said Ruby Rivera, IPSI’s statewide college access coordinator, who helped establish the program. “These meetings will offer them a comfortable forum and help remove some of the fears they have about their sons and daughters going off to college.”
But the informational sessions are more than just discussions. They provide a critical support network among parents and, more importantly, another avenue for qualifying for college financial assistance.
“Students in these schools and their parents require innovative personal counseling, interventions and need-based scholarships in order to overcome the significant environmental barriers to achieving a postsecondary education,” said Matt Orem, IPSI’s director of college access initiatives.
The biggest chunk of the program award ($166,000) will be used for need-based scholarships. The remainder will be for program support, such as travel, scholarship management and program evaluation.
Additionally, the UT System is creating a network of volunteers to work directly in low-income communities to help parents and students learn how to fill out financial aid forms and connect them with other resources to help them gain access to college.
“This program further demonstrates the UT System’s commitment to making college more accessible to Texans of all backgrounds, particularly those who historically have been underrepresented at our campuses,” said UT System Chancellor Mark G. Yudof. “Furthermore, that we have included a volunteer component to this worthy effort, which includes many of the system’s own employees, shows that we are mindful of our civic responsibility to educate more Texans.”
Café con Leche sessions will take place at high schools in regions around the UT System’s nine academic institutions.
The effort will help address the goals of the statewide initiative known as Closing the Gaps, which seeks to improve the college participation and graduation rates of minority students throughout Texas. Most schools in the low-income category have high minority populations.
The UT System grant was one of 42 awarded to institutions and non-profit organizations by Texas Guaranteed (TG). In all, TG announced more than $5.2 million in grants to advance college access, student retention and educational research.
“Worthy efforts such as the Café con Leche program strike at the very core of what we aim to accomplish: producing more college-ready students and eventually increasing the number of university graduates who come from historically underrepresented communities,” said Jacob Fraire, TG’s assistant vice president for Educational Alliances and Partnerships. “We are confident this meaningful enterprise will encourage students and perhaps inspire development of similar programs across the state that will help narrow the gap in higher education.”
The University of Texas System is one of the nation’s largest higher education systems, with nine academic campuses and six health institutions. The UT System has an annual operating budget of $10.7 billion (FY 2008) including $2.3 billion in research funded by federal, state, local and private sources. Student enrollment exceeded 190,000 in the 2006 academic year. The UT System confers more than one-third of the state's undergraduate degrees and educates nearly three-fourths of the state's health care professionals annually. With more than 80,000 employees, the UT System is one of the largest employers in the state.
