How Can We Scale the Power of Connection from One to 1.4 Million Texas Students?
Everything we do at Greater Texas Foundation is focused on helping Texas students achieve postsecondary success. Part of that work includes our long-running GTF Scholars initiative, a scholarship program for graduates of Texas Early College High Schools (ECHS). And year after year, analyses of the GTF Scholars program show that, even more than scholarship funding, human supports are essential to student success in college.
- A newly published article by our evaluation team emphasizes how much a caring professional can mean to a student, especially in a time where technological solutions are becoming more and more common.
- While we understand the importance of affordability and financial support, numerous focus groups with students and GTF Scholars program leads have demonstrated the power of human connection to student persistence, even during difficult circumstances like COVID.
We are proud of the outcomes – both the stories of student success and the learning to share with the field. We also understand this is one program serving a relatively small population of students in a state with 1.4 million postsecondary students at public and private institutions.
The GTF Scholars program provides a last dollar scholarship and wraparound support services to graduates of Texas ECHSs at eight universities in the state. Since 2012, we have worked with an external evaluation team to share learning from this program with the participating institutions and with the field–lessons about ECHSs, the student transition from ECHS to a university, how to support students through completion of a bachelor’s degree, and student success in general.
How can we take lessons from strong programs and scale those lessons to serve all Texas students? Many of our grantee partners are doing just that. Here is a sampling:
- The Texas Success Center helps community colleges engaged in Talent Strong Texas Pathways scale practices that meet students’ basic needs, foster wellness and create belonging. This sense of security creates the foundation for academic success and pathway completion.
- The Institute for Evidence-Based Change is working to implement its Caring Campus program across regional collaboratives in Texas to increase students’ connectedness, sense of belonging, and academic success.
- The Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute partnered with Texas Success Center to begin the Minding College Minds Project, They are engaging community and campus stakeholders to establish a mental health framework with individual-level responsiveness.
- University of Houston’s “CLASS 2+2 Pathways Program” works by guaranteeing transfer admission for certain degree programs and engaging students prior to their arrival on UH campus. With a dedicated staff focused on transfer success and connecting students with organizations and activities, transfer students will feel a sense of belonging at UH even before they enroll.
These are just a few examples from our incredible partners working to improve support and personal connections for all students. Our new strategic plan will continue to emphasize student success at the systems level. We invite you to learn about our funding process and share your ideas for investing in human connection to support student success.