Amarillo College

In 2010, Russell Lowery-Hart, then an administrator of West Texas A&M, visited Amarillo College, a Texas community college. Student surveys revealed that the college’s nine percent graduation rate, compared to a community-college national average of 24 percent, was driven by poverty-related costs and hardships including food, housing, utility bills, and transportation. In 2011, Amarillo College joined Achieving the Dream, a nonprofit that supports a network of community colleges in improving outcomes. In 2014, Lowery-Hart became the college’s president and began using a comprehensive model to support its poor students. The 10,000-student college operates an on-campus Advocacy and Resource Center (ARC) with a food pantry, social workers to provide financial counseling, a legal aid clinic, free mental-health counseling, a low-cost child care that operates 14-hours a day, and an emergency fund that can mobilize in hours to cover students’ unforseen costs to prevent them from dropping courses or dropping out altogether. The college offers eight-week intensive terms, and professors are assigned to students determined to be at a high risk of struggling academically for regular check-ins. School President Lowery-Hart sits down with students weekly to discuss their experiences and suggestions. Amarillo College’s three-year graduation rate has risen from 13 percent in 2011 to 22 percent in 2019.