Linda Fossen, Featured Educator UTB/TSC

August, 2008
by Eileen Mattei

“I support Tech Prep because it combines education with the job world in an easily understood and connected way,” says Educator Linda Fossen who has served on the Board of Tech Prep for five years. As the Associate Vice President for enrollment management at UTB/TSC , Fossen has seen that Tech Prep gives students and community members the tools that result in the young adults securing good -paying jobs and laying the ground work for a brighter future.

One aspect of Tech Prep that helps students prepare for and enter post-secondary education is dual and dual technical enrollment. The high school students take college level courses free of charge -from UTB/TSC, TSTC, UTPA, and STC -while in high school and earn both high school and college credits.

“We have 23 partner high schools where we collaborate, offering over 50 dual enrollment and technical dual courses,” Fossen said. “We’ve found those students get higher grades and are retained and graduate overall at a higher rate,” from high school and college.

Statistically, Tech Prep students (many of them in dual enrollment classes) consistently come to the college campus with a higher GPA and persist in their studies at a higher rate, Fossen said. New graduates reach college better prepared, that is college ready, at a significantly greater level than the general population.

While Valley Tech Prep and dual enrollment students are getting ahead educationally, they are also saving themselves and their parents millions of dollars in college tuition and fees.
The UTB/TSC campus alone charted a tuition and fee savings of $5.5 million for Tech Prep and other dual enrollment high school students last year. That’s not counting $2 million in savings on course books. “It’s a huge, huge advantage for high school students. It’s like a scholarship program,” Fossen said.

The dual enrollment program at UTB in particular is an ‘on-ramp’ to post-secondary education. The students -8758 of them at UTB last year -get exposed to college level courses and realize they can succeed.

Tech Prep and dual enrollment courses together are creating a college-going culture in South Texas, between them giving students incentives to stay in high school along with the social and academic skills to go on to higher education.