Program will help adult students earn degree

The University of Texas at Brownsville has been selected for a state program that aims to help Texans with college credits complete a bachelor’s degree, officials announced Tuesday.

UTB is one of eight state schools chosen for Grad TX, an initiative of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

A press release said the program is designed to help the more than 40,000 adults in Texas with 90 or more credit hours move to the next step — a college degree.

“Encouraging and assisting our adult population to get back on track for a college degree is critical for Texas to become a national leader and global competitor,” Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes said in a statement.

The program has a website that helps students determine how their credits will transfer to participating schools. According to officials, each university chosen for Grad TX is a public institution and has online classes to help students who are likely juggling work and school. The chosen schools also have programs specifically designed for these students.

Each of the schools also has academic advisers and financial aid specialists who work with returning students.

In a city with a relatively low percentage of people with college degrees, UTB-TSC employees Hilda Flores and Magda Martinez — who work in the same office — are representative of the people Grad TX is trying to help.

Flores, who already managed to finish her degree and is now program coordinator for the Department of Applied Business Technology, could have used the help of the initiative several years ago. Now she is encouraging Martinez, who is her administrative secretary, to look in to it.

“I’ve already been there done that, but she’s going through it,” Flores said. “See, when I was going through it we didn’t have online classes, so I had to come face-to-face.”

Flores attributes the job she has now to earning a bachelor’s degree.

She said she earned a certificate in 1980, but after that spent several years outside of school. Eventually she earned an associate degree and then in 2001, a bachelor’s of applied arts and sciences in applied business technology. She began working for UTB-TSC in 2002.

“Things happen,” Flores said. “You get married, you have responsibilities and your whole life changes, so I didn’t get my associate until May of ’99. But, once I was focused and I knew what I wanted, I knew I could not move up my career ladder without a bachelor’s degree.”

Similarly, Martinez, a single mother, earned an associate degree but stopped further schooling to raise her teenagers.

She now has her sights on a bachelor’s of applied arts and sciences in applied business technology after returning to school in 2009.

“Me, for example, I had to stop taking classes because of my children back in 2003, but online classes have made it possible for me to continue,” she said. “Work, and then family, makes it hard.”

Martinez said earning her associate degree was a challenge because she was going through a divorce at the time, but now online classes have helped her move further and Grad TX looks like it might help, too.

“I’m going to look into, yes,” she said of the program. “I definitely will get all the information about that.”

Grad TX has received initial funding though a federal College Access Challenge Grant, the press release said.

Other Texas institutions chosen to participate are Lamar University, Midwestern State University, Texas A&M University Commerce, Texas Tech University, University of Houston – Downtown, University of Houston – Clear Lake and the University of North Texas System, the release said.