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Local college presidents gathered downtown on Wednesday to announce their joint commitment to boosting the number of college graduates living in San Antonio.
They’ve signed a pledge as part of a joint partnership with the economic development organization Greater SATX.
Greater SATX Chief Impact Officer Romanita Matta-Barrera said the goal is to increase the percentage of adults in the metro area with an associate’s degree or higher from 41.3% to 45% by 2030.
That percentage is known as the educational attainment rate. It’s tracked by the U.S. Census as part of the American Community Survey.
“Already, our institutions are typically producing over 30,000 completions annually, and with this current attainment rate at 41.3%,” Matta-Barrera said. “Reaching 45% would be adding the equivalent of approximately 100,000 more degreed individuals over the next five years. That is a significant shift that will strengthen our economic growth and expand long-term opportunities for local families.”
The leaders of all of San Antonio’s major institutions of higher education have signed on to the pledge, with several saying they wanted to set a higher goal of 50%.
The head of Alamo Colleges, University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, Trinity University and University of the Incarnate Word all attended the announcement of the goal on Wednesday.
Matta-Barrera said Our Lady of the Lake University, St. Mary’s University and Texas State University are also participating.
UT San Antonio President Taylor Eighmy said the pledge to work together to meet that goal is unique to San Antonio.
“If you were to go to Charlotte or Denver or Seattle or Boston or the Bay Area, you would never, ever find this kind of collaboration happening between higher ed, public and private, and economic development engines,” Eighmy said.
According to Matta-Barrera, part of the shared commitment includes a promise to share data and best practices.
“That we talk about how we can identify persistence and completion strategies and the retention of those college graduates and a better understanding of where are they going after they graduate, why are they choosing to stay, or why are they choosing to leave? And how can we as a community of business leaders, civic and public institutions come together to ensure that we're retaining them and we're providing a strong enough value propositions to say, ‘Stay in our San Antonio region and make a difference here,’” Matta-Barrera said.
A&M-San Antonio students David Abundis and Avery Hirsch are part of a Greater SATX program designed to help students connect to careers after college called SA WORX.
Hirsch graduated from Steele High School in Cibolo. She’s studying cybersecurity in college and said there’s a lot of opportunities in her field in San Antonio, both on the military and the civilian side.
“I really do see myself staying in San Antonio,” Hirsch said. “My partner goes to Texas State. So, he wants to be a teacher; I want to be in cybersecurity. So, the plan is to stay hopefully, because our family all lives here nearby San Antonio area.”
Abundis is from a small town about an hour away from San Antonio called Nixon. He’s studying computer science. He said he’s graduating in May and looking for jobs in software engineering or cybersecurity.
“I think I want to I want to try to stay here, find somewhere, either where I'm currently living at or find somewhere else to live. Definitely want to try to stay here, where all the opportunities are at,” Abundis said.
