Austin Community College (ACC) is taking serious steps to shake off the pandemic blues and get students back in the classrooms. Pairing up with the nonprofit InsideTrack, they aim to reach out to 6,800 former students who dropped out over the last three years. The partnership, announced Wednesday, has already seen contact made with around 10% of these students, with the move recording a "higher than usual rate of engagement" according to Seth Carreiro, associate partnership director of InsideTrack, as told to Austin American Statesman.

This push to reenroll students follows a troubling trend in Texas community colleges, with the number of students falling from 769,000 in 2019 to 665,000 by 2021. Looking past the enrollment slide, ACC launched the spring semester with a 7% increase in new student numbers, though still shy of pre-pandemic figures. Spearheading these efforts is ACC's associate vice chancellor of student engagement and academic success, Guillermo "Willie" Martinez, who told Austin American Statesman in January that the college hopes to have 1,000 former students back by next summer or fall.

While these wheels are in motion, ACC has another ace up its sleeve. Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart, ACC's Chancellor, presented a game-changing proposal on January 8 to offer free tuition for Central Texas high school seniors. Set to be formally reviewed by the Board of Trustees in February, the plan aims to fund $85 per credit hour for students, potentially covering up to three years of college study. As reported by Diverse Education, Lowery-Hart emphasized that "Our proposal covers the cost of tuition so that financial aid and scholarship dollars can go further and help students pay for their living expenses."

Amidst the grand talk of free tuition and re-enrollment plans, it's the daily barriers to education that ACC has been aiming to dismantle, from its holistic coaching for dropout students to setting up three centers for food, resources, and community in the fall. Martinez, navigating the students' cost constraints and time commitments, having opened these centers, said to Austin American Statesman, "The biggest takeaway with this grant, and with other efforts, is come back to ACC and let's help you finish your goals."

The community college's free tuition proposal starts in the fall, pending approval, and targets all 2024 high school graduates within the ACC service area. According to officials, the state appropriations through House Bill 8 will play a significant role in funding these ambitions. Lowery-Hart described the initiative as the "first conversation to making college something for everyone" and hopes it becomes a national model for education equity.