Program Description:
Advise TX College Advising Corps is sponsored by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) through the College Access Challenge Grant and private foundations and business. The program started in 2009 when the The University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Public School Initiatives placed fifteen recent graduates of UT Austin into service. The Institute received a grant from the THECB to expand the program to 120 advisers in 2011, and Advise TX now has chapters at Texas A&M University, Texas Christian University, and Trinity University. Each chapter recruits, hires, and trains their own graduates to serve as advisers in selected partner high schools. Advise TX places exceptional recent college graduates from all fields of study on high school campuses as near-peer college advisers to lead low-income and first-generation students to college. Advise TX advisers receive intensive training before serving in a high school, completing a six-week practical curriculum that focuses on college access, college admissions, financial aid, student services, diversity, community service, and professionalism. Advisers live within their service areas, involving themselves in the communities that they serve.