Tuesday, December 27, 2022
  Around Campus

By Victoria Brito Morales

RIO GRANDE VALLEY, TEXAS – The OneStar Foundation, the Texas-based non-profit that administers AmeriCorps funding in the state and advances national services to combat social challenges, has allocated more than $900,000 for the 2022-2023 academic year of AmeriCorps operations at UTRGV.

AmeriCorps at UTRGV helps students with the college enrollment process, including admissions, testing, financial aid application (FAFSA), orientation, registration and more. It also facilitates parent workshops and serves as a liaison for the student application process into higher education.

AmeriCorps, which started in 2009 at legacy institution UT Brownsville, now hires 45 UTRGV students every semester on each campus (Brownsville and Edinburg), for 180 total per academic year. The goal is to help area graduating juniors and seniors pursue a college career. Students have a two-year participation cap.

AmeriCorps members serve more than 4,500 high school seniors every academic year by answering questions and guiding students with all college enrollment requirements, and the group engages more than 80,000 Americans in intensive service each year.

The program in the Valley currently serves the San Benito CISD, Brownsville ISD, McAllen ISD and Edinburg CISD, and has added Los Fresnos CISD in the 2022 – 2023 school year.

“One of the major benefits of the program is that we are promoting higher education at the high schools we serve throughout the Valley,” said Ruth Torres, senior financial aid coordinator at UTRGV and senior program coordinator for AmeriCorps.

“We help UTRGV students by giving them a pathway to employment opportunities and help develop vital work skills. Then they turn around and help prospective students pursue their desired education goals.”

For more information on AmeriCorps at UTRGV, contact Torres at ruth.torres@utrgv.edu.



ABOUT UTRGV

The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.

UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island. UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.