Amarillo College has received a grant from the Greater Texas Foundation that will enable educators from AC and Caprock High School to join forces to create a data ecosystem to ensure more students attain postsecondary degrees and credentials.

The grant is valued at $181,695.

Thanks in large part to its consistent use of data analytics to build pathways for student success, AC has been recognized as one of Top Ten community colleges in the nation.

The grant will support AC’s efforts to introduce those same predictive-modeling techniques to its largest feeder high school – Caprock – to create data pipelines necessary to build and maintain seamless pathways from the freshman year of high school through College graduation.

The ecosystem that results could become a template for other schools within the Amarillo ISD and, potentially, for other ISDs throughout Texas.

“We’ve found there is value in tracking AC students over time to identify which pathways lead to the most compelling student outcomes, like persistence, graduation and transferring to a university,” said Bob Austin, vice president of enrollment management at AC.

“This collaboration gives us the opportunity to help our colleagues at Caprock get started on their own data journey.”

“At the end of the day, we hope to improve outcomes for our local students by coaching them and making adjustments as early as in the ninth grade. Our goal is to help more students get educated beyond high school, begin living-wage careers, and ultimately help improve the productivity and sustainability of our economy.”

-Amarillo College