Funding supports COVID-impacted students in reaching degree completion

MARCH 17, 2021 — Texas college students who were displaced from the workforce and those who put a pause on their higher education due to the pandemic now have additional resources available to them to go back to school and finish the degrees they started.

UTSA has received a grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to provide emergency educational aid for undergraduate students affected by COVID-19. The new funding will allow these students to continue their higher education and get back on track toward graduation.

“We’re trying to help individuals who were very close to completing their degree requirements but were impacted by the pandemic and had to step away from their education,” said Lynn Barnes, UTSA’s senior vice provost for strategic enrollment. “This support from the Coordinating Board is welcome relief to the students we lost during the pandemic who want to reenroll and complete their degrees despite challenging financial circumstances.”

“This support from the Coordinating Board is welcome relief to the students who want to reenroll.”

Guided by the university’s strategic plan to become a model for student success, UTSA is actively advancing policies, best practices and programming to improve student retention and graduation rates. At the same time faculty and staff are working to identify and remove barriers that have the potential to prevent undergraduates from earning their bachelor’s degrees.

“Finances are one of the biggest challenges that college students and their families face today, a concern that the pandemic has intensified,” Barnes said. “We believe this grant, along with bolstered institutional funds and the additional federal funding provided through the three distributions of the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, will help draw more students back to UTSA to complete their degrees and accelerate their goals of becoming gainfully employed in their chosen careers.”

Over the past year UTSA has disbursed more than $20 million in financial support from institutional funding and Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund to students affected by the pandemic.

The Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, which was established through the CARES Act, provides emergency financial aid grants to students who are experiencing financial issues due to the change of campus operations in relation to COVID-19. Funding from the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund helps eligible students cover the cost of food, housing, technology, health care, child care and course-related expenses.

UTSA was one of 25 applicants to receive a grant during this second round of awards from the Coordinating Board’s Texas Reskilling Support Fund Grant Program, a $46.5 million fund that was created to provide emergency educational support for displaced students impacted by the pandemic.

Additionally, UTSA will work with Alamo Colleges to identify students with a high number of credit hours who could reenroll to attend UTSA.

This isn’t the first time UTSA has helped its fellow Texans get back on track amid the pandemic. Last year the university developed its Career in Focus initiative, a series of free and discounted online career advancement courses for displaced workers.

That program reached more than 2,000 job-insecure San Antonians through its two primary programs: a series of free and discounted Job Jumpstart courses and Career Builder Badges micro credentials.

More than 1,216 people enrolled in the Job Jumpstart courses, which provided skills-building opportunities for in-demand jobs in health care, information technology, customer support, sales and other areas, while the Career Builder Badges program attracted 800 online learners.

— Valerie Bustamante