OCTOBER 30, 2020 — This fall UTSA welcomed its inaugural cohort of students from the Bold Promise program into the Roadrunner family. This new tuition promise initiative is designed to provide access to an excellent education for Texas students from low- and middle-income families. One in five first-time freshmen enrolled at the university this semester are participating in the program.
Launched in December 2019, the groundbreaking program covers 100% of a first-time freshman’s tuition and fees for four years. The program is open to recent Texas high school graduates who ranked in the top 25% of their class and have a family income up to $50,500. Students are not required to fill out a separate application to be considered; Bold Promise is automatically awarded to UTSA applicants who meet the program qualifications.
For the fall 2020 semester, 2,989 applicants from across the state were offered Bold Promise. Ultimately, 959 (32%) of those students enrolled at UTSA; 638 of the students offered Bold Promise are from Bexar County, and of that group, 371 (58%) enrolled.
By covering the total cost of tuition and fees for the students involved, the Bold Promise program is making a financial impact of $6.4 million this semester alone, resulting in significant savings for the families of these high-achieving students.
“As a Hispanic Serving Institution, UTSA has a record of investing to support educational attainment for Hispanic students as well as students from other historically underserved populations,” said Kimberly Andrews Espy, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “I’m excited to see that our Bold Promise program is enabling increased college going by providing direct financial support to more high-achieving, high-potential students in our own community.”
In order to continue to be eligible for the program, Bold Promise students must enroll full-time each semester (12 credit hours or more) and maintain a 2.5 grade point average.
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Professor Swisher is Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research focuses on risk factors in adolescence and the transition to adulthood (e.g., neighborhood poverty, exposure to violence, parental incarceration) and their consequences for health and well-being across the life course. Recent work has focused on educational mobility and, in particular, challenges faced by first generation college students.
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Denman Ballroom (SU 2.01.28The University of Texas at San Antonio is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge through research and discovery, teaching and learning, community engagement and public service. As an institution of access and excellence, UTSA embraces multicultural traditions and serves as a center for intellectual and creative resources as well as a catalyst for socioeconomic development and the commercialization of intellectual property - for Texas, the nation and the world.
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UTSA is a proud Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) as designated by the U.S. Department of Education.
The University of Texas at San Antonio, a Hispanic Serving Institution situated in a global city that has been a crossroads of peoples and cultures for centuries, values diversity and inclusion in all aspects of university life. As an institution expressly founded to advance the education of Mexican Americans and other underserved communities, our university is committed to ending generations of discrimination and inequity. UTSA, a premier public research university, fosters academic excellence through a community of dialogue, discovery and innovation that embraces the uniqueness of each voice.
