ACC growth needed says Austin Chamber of Commerce

More growth is needed at Austin Community College to meet the predicted growth in population and workforce demands in the Austin area, according to an Oct. 19 report by the Austin Chamber of Commerce.

The report said that ACC was critical in helping to ensure Austin's success in the global economy and called for the alignment of policies to "broadly increase enrollment from Metro Austin into post-secondary education".

In addition, the college was one of two publicly funded local institutions, alongside Texas State University, that was best-suited to rapidly scale their enrollment and graduation numbers to meet the city's growing population and technical employment demands. Such performance metrics like are currently being reported and reviewed by the Board of Trustees, so that annual goals can be set.

One of the Chamber's biggest concerns was that although ACC's enrollment, graduate and technical certificate earner growth rates had exceeded Austin's overall population growth rates since 2000, ACC's projected growth rate of 2.2 percent for 2006 to 2010 is below the area's expected growth rate of 3 percent.

In addition, Austin's projected overall employment growth, especially in health care, exceeded current and projected ACC enrollment and graduation or certification growth rates. The report also pointed out that only four school district boundaries are completely within ACC's education service area, which is a 30-school district, and contribute financially to the ACC property tax base.

On the positive side, however, ACC's enrollment growth rates for African-American and Hispanic students have exceeded their population growth rates from 2000 to 2006, and ACC students who take occupation licensure exams pass in "overwhelming numbers," showing the high quality of ACC's programs in these areas.

The report said that the college should continue its progress toward targeting more closely with projected regional needs for enrollment, associate degree and technical certification, especially among the fastest growing demographic groups. The report also suggested that ACC could acquire additional funds to increase instructional capacity through the expansion of its tax base and, possibly, the reallocation of existing operating funds.

It was stressed that funding challenges had to be overcome in order to meet targets like that of ACC's graduation rate appropriately meeting the local market need. Additionally, in lieu of this challenge, the Austin business community should consider supporting ACC's efforts to expand the taxing district.

Notably, the report stated: "Students who take classes at ACC and then transfer to other universities perform as well or better at those universities than students who did not first attend a community college."

The Task Force recommended the college explore academic outcome measures that would help assess ACC completers and transfers, which would aid universities and the business community to better understand ACC's success in preparing students for university coursework and the workplace.

Currently, according to the report, ACC graduates five percent of credit-seeking students with an associate's degree within four years of admission. This is due to the nearly 75 percent of ACC degree-seeking students who are enrolled part-time (less than 12 credit hours per semester). An unknown number transfer to university prior to earning 30 credits at ACC. Some students leave before completion when offered paying jobs which require less than an associate's degree, and some students seek to improve technical skills through only one or two courses; and may even have a college degree already.

The report also said that more than 40 percent of entering ACC students in fall 2006 required developmental or remedial academic coursework which did not count toward college graduation.

One important observation that the report made was regarding the demographics of the ACC student course enrollment. According to Austin Chamber's ACC Factbook 2006, the overall enrollment number of the compound annual growth rate was heavily influenced by health care related enrollments from courses such as speech, biology, and Allied Health Professionals. If health care related enrollments were removed, the growth rate would drop from 2.7 percent to 0.87 percent.