Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Announces 2018 Star Award Winner

In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which struck the Texas Coast in August of 2017, Houston residents, businesses and officials are still in the process of getting back on their feet.

Austin, Texas – On Friday, November 30, at its annual Leadership Conference luncheon, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (Coordinating Board) presented the 2018 Star Award to Houston Community College’s (HCC) Weekend College program, a template for degree completion for working adults.

The program is designed to improve graduation rates for students pursuing a major in business, one of the most popular majors at HCC, and to lower student debt.

“The Coordinating Board is proud to recognize HCC’s Weekend College program that helps working adults efficiently complete a degree. It supports Texas students and the state’s 60x30TX plan,” said Commissioner of Higher Education Raymund Paredes. “There were many excellent programs to choose from among this year’s Star Award finalists, but the judges unanimously agreed that this innovative HCC program and its potential to positively impact a great number of working adult students made it the decisive Star Award winner this year.”

The Coordinating Board received 36 nominations and 26 applications for this year’s Star Award program. Five finalists were announced in September and included Alamo Colleges: Palo Alto College – Project Access;
Teach Denton Integrated Collaborative – Teach Denton: Supporting Teacher Pathways and Teacher Effectiveness at Texas Woman’s University; Texas A&M International University – Service-Learning at Home and Abroad; and The University of Texas at Tyler – Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences Program (BAAS).

The Star Award program recognizes exceptional contributions toward meeting one or more of the goals of 60x30TX:

• Increasing the postsecondary educational attainment level of the state’s 25- to 34-year-old population (Educated Population Goal).

• Increasing the number of students completing a certificate, associate, bachelor’s, or master’s from an institution of higher education in Texas (Completion Goal).

• Increasing the number of programs with identified marketable skills at Texas public institutions of higher education (Marketable Skills Goal).

• Implementing programs or cost efficiencies that help to ensure undergraduate student loan debt will not exceed 60 percent of first-year wages (Student Debt Goal).

The Star Award was established in 2001. Winners are selected by a review committee consisting of Coordinating Board members, out-of-state higher education experts, and Texas community leaders.

Representatives of institutions, organizations and groups from across Texas have been recognized for their efforts to develop and implement the state’s most successful programs, projects, activities and partnerships.