Home  / Action Campaigns

Expanding Access to Education

Over the past year, the campaign has identified and focused on three major areas: college savings, financial education, and college completion.

College Savings Activities has concentrated on increasing awareness about college savings and 529 college savings plans:

To support the work around college savings, RAISE Texas is excited to announce the Child Support for College (CS4C) project which will launch in early 2012. For more information on this project, please see the Press Release by Citi.

To encourage families to start a college savings account for their child(ren), RAISE Texas is sponsoring the Save ‘n SMILE Family Video Contest. The winner will receive a $2,000 college savings deposit in their child’s name through the Texas Tuition Promise Fund. Click here for more details on how to enter the contest.

College Completion

The campaign supports various post-secondary education efforts that incentivize and improve college certificate and degree completion rates at Texas public institutions of higher education, including community colleges. A major focus of the campaign includes developmental education reforms for students underprepared for college coursework. The goal is to promote evidence-based reforms that move students through remedial coursework more effectively and efficiently. Other efforts include effective implementation of performance-based funding at Texas institutions to reward college success and completion.

Financial Education

RAISE Texas, through its partnership with OpportunityTexas, provided grants through the OpportunityTexas Innovation and Investment Fund to organizations that will promote college savings and/or financial education in Houston schools.  One of the 2011 grant recipients is Texas Council on Economic Education which is piloting the Smarter Texas financial education program to integrate financial education into the public school curriculum in grades K-12. For more information on the Texas Council on Economic Education click here.

College Access and Financial Aid Websites

College for All Texans

KnowHow2Go

Finaid

The College Board

Net Price Calculator (NPC)

Student Aid on the Web

82nd Legislature:
In the recently completed 82nd Texas Legislature several bills passed relating to college savings, financial aid, financial education, and financial preparation for college.

HB 3708 College Savings Accounts
The bill amends Chapter 54 of the Education Code to create an enhanced Texas Save and Match Program (program). The bill expands the Save & Match, currently only limited to the prepaid tuition plan to include the Texas College Savings Plan. The law also eliminates various college savings penalties, so that savings in Texas plans would be exempt from all major state-administered public benefits programs and consideration for assets in state financial aid programs such as TEXAS Grants. This bill enables the state of Texas to carry out a matching program which would match money contributed to a higher education savings account or a prepaid tuition contract with funds generated from individual contributions to the program or appropriated funds. The bill took effect on June 17, 2011.

SB 290 Financial Literacy
The bill amends the current law by including a personal financial literacy component in public school mathematics instruction. The purpose of the bill is to imbed financial concepts in Kindergarten through grade eight curriculum so that children learn financial literacy at an early age. The bill took effect on June 17, 2011.

HB 399 Financial Literacy
The bill requires general academic teaching institutions (universities) to offer personal financial literacy training. The bill would require the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (Coordinating Board) to determine the topics covered by the training. The training could be offered as an online course. The bill took effect on June 17, 2011.

HB 34 Post Secondary Education
The bill builds upon the current law that requires financial literacy be included as part of the required curriculum in the Economics course in the 12th grade. Such instruction now must include methods of paying for postsecondary education and training, with a specific emphasis on preparation of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The bill took effect on June 17, 2011.