ACC, Texas State program to pave a path for degree-seekers

Austin Community College and Texas State University are planning to partner for a co-enrollment program in which students will take core curriculum at the ACC Hays campus in Kyle.

Beginning in the fall 2014 semester, the Pathway Program will enable students to simultaneously take courses at ACC and Texas State. Students will pay community college tuition rates for the first two years with a guaranteed transfer path to the four-year university, ACC President and CEO Richard Rhodes said.

"Along the way, they're getting the advising, the counseling necessary to ensure that they're successful, in that every hour that they take is transferable into the major that they want to end up with," he said.

Once the core curriculum is completed at ACC, full admission to most Texas State majors for the completion of a bachelor's degree will be guaranteed for students with a minimum 2.25 cumulative grade-point average. Participants of the Pathway Program will have access to activities and services at both ACC and Texas State, and first-year students will have the option to reside at one of Texas State's residence halls.

Scheduled to open in spring 2014, the ACC Hays campus will be located at the intersection of Kohler's Crossing and Kyle Parkway in Kyle.

About 225 students are expected to join the program in the first year, Texas State University Provost Eugene Bourgeois said. He said the only limiting factor to the amount of students who could co-enroll might be residence hall space at Texas State if the program becomes "wildly popular."

"We have a commitment to improve our freshman profile, and then longer term to simply improve the retention and then ultimately the six-year graduation rates of all students," Bourgeois said. "This program hopefully will benefit those students and make them matriculate through ACC and Texas State more quickly and more successfully."

ACC has a similar co-enrollment program with the University of Texas at Austin. Path to Admission through Co-Enrollment, or PACE, starts this year for qualifying 2013–14 first-year students.