Our Woman of the Lake College introduced a brand new pathway for college students to earn a tuition-free grasp’s diploma in as little as one yr beginning this fall.
The No-Value Grasp’s Program provides eligible OLLU college students a free pathway to incomes a grasp’s diploma within the areas of enterprise administration, cybersecurity, cybersecurity administration, nonprofit administration and social work.
“For generations, our college has innovated and expanded entry to larger training for a better function,” mentioned Abel Chávez, president of OLLU. “Immediately, we take our dedication to our households one monumental step, by making certain that entry, completion, and superior credentials are attainable and linked to significant livelihoods primarily based on values.”
College officers are opening 30 spots for qualifying college students who wish to begin in any of those graduate applications this fall, and may decide to finishing a grasp’s diploma in 12 to 18 months.
To qualify, college students should have accomplished certainly one of 34 eligible undergraduate levels in 4 consecutive years and may instantly enroll in any of the 5 graduate diploma pathways. They have to additionally preserve a grade level common of at the very least 3.0 throughout their undergraduate and graduate applications, and have demonstrated monetary want.
Alan Silva, provost and vice chairman for educational affairs at OLLU, mentioned these preliminary 30 seats are a solution to check college students’ curiosity. They chose a few of the hottest grasp’s diploma plans that may be accomplished in 30 hours, he mentioned, however the aim could be to broaden the eligible graduate diploma plans, in addition to the variety of seats over the following couple of years.
College students must cowl the prices of books and a few reasonable charges. However the bulk of the fee shall be absorbed by the college, Silva mentioned, including that these educational prices shall be absorbed into the college’s working prices and coated partly by a rise in tuition that takes impact this fall.
Undergraduate tuition at OLLU is rising for the 2026-27 tutorial yr by about $40 per credit score hour, leading to a rise of about $622 per semester for college students taking between 12 and 19 hours.
The personal Catholic college, which serves a majority Hispanic, or Latino pupil inhabitants, is named the birthplace of the Hispanic Serving Establishment designation that a lot of the area’s universities now carry.
However over time, pupil enrollment at OLLU has suffered. Final fall, counts confirmed about 1,800 complete college students had enrolled, a lower of practically 170 college students because the fall of 2024, and near 300 because the fall of 2023.
Final spring, college officers moved to chop over a dozen undergraduate diploma applications because of a two-year analysis analyzing pupil curiosity, Chávez mentioned on the time.
Silva mentioned this no-cost program is the following step within the realignment of OLLU’s choices and pathways to determine what isn’t working for college students anymore and what may very well be constructed as an alternative.
Rising this no-cost program will rely on pupil demand, success and on the establishment’s capability to fundraise or soak up the fee, Silva mentioned.
“Over time as we [look] to scale this up, um we would want to once more have a look at our working funds, what else might we do, how artistic might we get. However we’re additionally at all times in search of fundraising,” Silva mentioned. “We’re in search of personal donors who may wish to make investments on this and spend money on the way forward for our college students’ training.”
The San Antonio Report companions with Open Campus on larger training protection.
