Thursday May 16 2024
Joannette Casias is 41, a mother of eight, and pursuing a bachelor’s degree at Palo Alto College through a new Alamo Colleges program that helps connect students with high-wage careers.
Having grown up fatherless in a “hard neighborhood with little means,” Casias found redemption through the “familia” at Palo Alto. She began attending classes at the South Side campus in the fall of 2022, working toward a two-year associate’s degree in business, then recently learned about the college district’s new “AlamoU” initiative.
By 2026, the first-generation college student hopes to earn a bachelor’s of applied technology in operations management.
“Really, the sky’s the limit for me. There’s so many ideas I have,” said Casias, who had her first child at 16.
She had worked for years in restaurants, hotels and offices, got her GED and took courses in professional development, “trying to find my way, with no direction.” Now she’s closing in on a four-degree at a community college campus that’s affordable and less intimidating than a university setting.
Through changes in state law approved by the Legislature in 2017 and 2021, the district has begun offering bachelor’s degrees in high-demand fields, starting with a nursing program at San Antonio College that launched in 2021.
The AlamoU campaign, which is working to expand those offerings, is “a strategic response to the burgeoning demands in key economic sectors,” district Chancellor Mike Flores said at a recent celebration of the new programs.
Turning lives around and breaking cycles of poverty is crucial to the Alamo Colleges’ mission of “empowering our diverse communities for success,” he said.
“We at Alamo have recognized the evolving landscape of workforce requirements across the community and have taken proactive steps to equip our students with the necessary skills to excel in high-wage, high-demand fields,” Flores said.
Tuition and fees for 12 semester hours in the bachelor’s programs are expected to range from $1,370 to $4,370 this fall. The new programs typically start with cohorts of 50 to 100 students but that’s expected to grow. Over a lifetime, a graduate with a bachelor’s degree typically earns more than 80% more than one with a high school diploma, Flores said.
Jasmine Carrington-Brannon will graduate this month, earning a bachelor’s in nursing from SAC, whose 57-year-old nursing program is the largest in San Antonio with 300 to 400 students each semester.
She hopes to land a job with the Veterans Administration, and is counting on her degree to help forge a career path wherever she goes.
“Being a military spouse, I need to be prepared, if I have to move to a different state or anywhere, to be able to work with that community,” Carrington-Brannon said.
St. Philip’s College is adding a bachelor of applied technology degree in cybersecurity in the fall, and Northwest Vista College plans to offer a similar degree in cloud computing, following approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. A fifth bachelor’s program is being developed at Northeast Lakeview College.
Casias credits Joseph Coppola, the chair of career and technical education programs at Palo Alto, with inspiring and challenging her to reach beyond her own expectations. He told her about the new degree program while it was in the planning stage.
“I think I was limiting myself because of my background, and he would speak about the potential I had, not just in the skills I already brought forward, but the skills I was developing, and how quickly I was able to catch on,” she said.
Having raised four children, Casias remarried in 2016 into a “beautiful blended family” with four more. She and her husband have talked about forming a carpet cleaning and restoration business. But she’s networking, expanding her credentials and will “allow this road to take me where it leads.”
“We live in a world where you have to be adaptable,” Casias said.
Professor Elam 
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