As Texas continues to grow and change demographically, colleges and universities must adapt to be more welcoming to students who haven’t traditionally enrolled. K-12 schools must become a partner in preparing students to think about college, sometime as early as middle school. Those are just a few points Lisa Blazer, associate vice president for enrollment services at Texas A&M University and Ruth N. López Turley, director of the Houston Education Research Consortium and associate director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, emphasized to Texas Tribune CEO Evan Smith as they discussed how well Texas is preparing students to enroll and graduate from college.

Blazer and López Turley said there are multiple interventions that K-12 school districts and higher education can implement to make sure the pandemic doesn’t harm an entire generation of students who want to go to college, but can’t find the resources to make it happen. López Turley emphasized the importance of college advisers to help guide students and rejected the notion that college isn’t for everyone. Instead, she said, the value of a college degree is more important now than ever. It is everyone’s responsibility to convince young students it’s worth the effort and cost, she said. — Kate McGee

This session is supported by Raise Your Hand Texas, Texas State University System and Bank of America.