By Christine Granados —
Central Texas College will offer low cost face-to-face and online classes to Gillespie County residents at the Hill Country University Center and Fredericksburg High School this fall.
“We wanted to be able to offer low cost tuition to the Fredericksburg community,” said Janice Anderson, dean of CTC Central and Service Area Campuses in Killeen.
Hill Country University Center Foundation Executive Director Bob Hickerson said, “As Central Texas College begins to offer lower-division courses in the center this fall, students will see a decrease of almost two-thirds in the cost of tuition and fees. They will be able to take three courses for what one course has cost this last year.”
Austin Community College (ACC) and CTC petitioned the state legislature to change the boundaries of
their service areas in 2014 with Senate Bill 495.
The bill passed unanimously in the 84th Legislative session and became law immediately, according to the senate bill. Governor Greg Abbott’s signature is not necessary to make this bill a law, since the bill received more than the two-thirds votes required from all the members of both houses.
“This was a situation that improves the educational opportunities in Gillespie County and the Hill Country,” said Rep. Doug Miller (R-New Braunfels), who sponsored the bill in the House. “CTC is an organization that wants to be here as opposed to one that is doing it as an accommodation.”
The law transferred responsibility for serving Gillespie County, including the cities of Fredericksburg and Harper, to CTC starting fall 2015.
ACC has served as the community college for Gillespie County since the legislature delineated service areas in the mid-1990s.
“We have considerable experience running educational programs at a distance. We have overseas sites where we offer both face-to-face classes and online classes, so when we were approached to partner with HCUC, we thought we had the capability to do it,” said Anderson. “We are excited about the prospect of offering career technical courses to prepare Fredericksburg students for workforce demands.”
The college plans to work with Fredericksburg Independent School District to provide programs for Dr. Eric Wright’s regional consortium, but will offer programs open to the general public as well.
“The beauty of Central Texas is that they are so flexible,” said Dr. Eric Wright, superintendent of FISD. “If we can just make 10 students in an academic or workforce class and figure out the logistics they will work with us.
“After this first year, we’ll have a full offering of courses with an emphasis on basics,” Wright said. “The district will pick up a certain amount of the cost.”
For instance, students who are on free lunch will pay 10 percent of the tuition cost and the district will pay 90 percent; students on reduced lunch will pay 25 percent and the district will pay 75 percent and students in neither program will pay 50 percent of the cost of tuition.
“We find if you increase numbers that will get certification or trade skills, especially among first generation college students, they will no longer have the anxiety and go on to get more training,” Wright said.
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