Helping more students afford and attend college

Chambers of commerce are most often associated with recruiting companies and industries that can diversify and strengthen the local economy. The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce is no different. The Chamber works to ensure public policy creates an economic climate beneficial for citizens and provides networking and growth opportunities for our members. What many may not know is the role we play to help more young adults attend and afford post-secondary education.

Since 2006, the Austin Chamber has partnered with local colleges and several Central Texas school districts to improve college enrollment. The Direct to College 70 (DTC70) program is working to attain a 70 percent rate of direct enrollment into post-secondary education, on par with the national average. We have helped simplify and track student post-secondary readiness, college applications, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and put that directly into the hands of high school counselors. We've financed student surveys to find out what specific help they need. We texted nearly 150,000 times to students and parents to help keep them on track. Following graduation, we work with school districts to extend counselor contracts into the summer to ensure graduates get help on those last steps to complete college enrollment.

This partnership has helped thousands of families successfully enroll students in college and make it more affordable by completing the FAFSA, the starting point for grants, subsidized loans and scholarships. Local high schools host 50 FAFSA completion events, with support from an army of volunteers, to provide families free help filing their forms. These events are often times the difference maker when it comes to receiving financial aid and going to college.

The results speak for themselves. Approximately 17,000 high school seniors graduated from high school in Central Texas this year. At this point in the year 12,859 seniors have filed the FAFSA, a 136 percent increase over the 5,500 who filed in 2006. This equates to $78 million in federal, state and institutional aid to help Austin families afford college.

Because filling out government forms is not an awe inspiring process, the Austin Chamber partners with local organizations to provide incentives and contests for students who help their peers fill out the FAFSA. In coordination with C3 Events, Austin City Limits provides 30 passes to ACL Weekend 2 and an opportunity to go on a backstage tour of the festival grounds. Rodeo Austin provides 30 amusement ride and fairground passes. Alamo Drafthouse provides free VIP screenings to entire senior classes -- this time to Hutto, KIPP and Westwood, – for achieving the highest FAFSA submission rate among similar-sized high schools.

Participation by other generous companies like State Farm, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Cybertex have also added their dollars and volunteers to expand the marketing message to parents and all of greater Austin.

This would not be possible without the hard work of the leadership and counselors at Austin ISD, Hutto, ISD, Leander ISD, Pflugerville ISD, and Round Rock ISD. They invest countless hours in students' academic success. These dedicated individuals play a significant role in the future of Austin’s economy and for this, and for their commitment to our kids, we owe them a debt of gratitude.

The Austin Chamber is proud of all our partner school districts, businesses, parents, and volunteers. We are particularly proud of the students for achieving great success during this most recent FAFSA season. Because of their hard work and success with getting their classmates to submit a FAFSA and achieving the highest FAFSA submission rates across the region, we have awarded scholarships to several student leaders: Westwood High School - Rohith Mandavilli and Muhozi Nintunze, Bowie High School- Ilona Poole, Hutto High School – Genny Myers, McCallum High School – Emily Goulet, Liberal Arts and Sciences Academy– Quinn Simpson, KIPP Collegiate High School – Keia Galo and Christhian Cosenza, Ann Richards High School – Elena Gonzalez, and Harmony School of Excellence – Michelle Ballesteros and Julia Perdomo.

We look forward to making even greater strides next year and helping more of Austin’s attend and afford college.