San Antonio area colleges and universities have welcomed back tens-of-thousands of students for fall classes, touting new buildings and educational programs.
Alamo Community Colleges is among those to start classes at campuses across the city. Around 90,000 students go to classes each year at one of the colleges in the district, including St. Philip's.
The college is proudly showing off new facilities.
St. Philip's has a new four-story building for its tourism, hospitality, and culinary arts classes and a new health and wellness building for students
taking kinesiology, cardio, aerobic, first aid and physical therapy classes
Alamo Colleges spokeswoman Adrian Jackson said the list of new facilities at St. Philip's does not end there.
"I think the one that's most exciting for me is the Saint Artemisia Bowden Building, which is going to be right on MLK, on Martin Luther King Drive and that is where our cybersecurity program is going to be located and is growing," she said.
Saint Artemisia Bowden was integral in the founding of St. Philip's College.
The college has also cut the ribbon on the newly renovated Clarence W. Norris Building, including classes, and writing, testing and tutoring centers, and study spaces.
The Southwest Campus of St. Philip's welcomes a new and expanded welding and automotive building.
Elsewhere around the city, The University of Texas at San Antonio welcomes back around 35,000 students for the fall semester on the Northwest Side and downtown today.
The university's new Bold Scholars Program is helping bolster the college experience of 220 freshmen this year. The program is an aspect of the Bold Promise Program, which covers tuition and mandatory fees for eight consecutive fall-spring semesters for eligible students.
Tammy Wyatt, the Vice Provost for Student Success, said Bold Scholars goes a step further and fully pays for on-campus housing for first year students. She said on-campus living has many benefits for freshmen adjusting to college life.
"Whether that's engaging with a diverse set of peers, whether that's having direct access to close academic support, feeling engaged and belonging to UTSA." she said.
The UT System launched the programs to help families manage rising college costs. Enrollees must be in the top 25% of their high school graduation class and come from families with an annual household income of less than $70,000.
On the deep South Side, Texas A&M-San Antonio started regular fall classes for around 7,000 students last Thursday. The university is still looking for 100 women from underserved communities to enter a free six-week course to train for careers in the internet technology field.
The Texas Two Step for Increasing Women in Technology Program is a state and university effort to diversify the male-dominated field of internet technology, including cybersecurity. It's funded by a grant so there is zero out of pocket costs to enrollees.
Aurora Medina is the coordinator for workforce development at the university.
"We're looking for individuals, preferably females, who have suffered some sort of hardship (either related) to COVID or not. And then we attract those individuals. We have them apply and make sure they meet all the criteria based on the grant," she said.
Applicants must be at least 18, be a U.S citizen, and the recipient of public assistance.
The self-paced online course begins in early September, so applicants are encouraged to apply very soon through the university.
