MEETING THE DEMAND
Austin Community College’s $770 million bond was able to pass without a tax rate increase due to rising property values. The bond will create space for programs that will address student and workforce demand.
BREAKING DOWN THE BOND
Austin Community College works directly with companies in high-demand elds, such as advanced manufacturing and nursing, to streamline employment. Below are job postings in Austin for careers related to ACC programing from January-June 2022.
A Advanced
C Computer science
N Nursing
PROGRAMS KEY
manufacturing
Advanced manufacturing includes welding, robotics and more.
B Business
H Health sciences
S Student services
20,400 JOBS
AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE CAMPUSES 1 Southeast Travis County * $200M A 2 Hays $100M H N 3 Highland $100M A B C 4 Cypress Creek $80M C 5 Pinnacle ** $75M B C H 6 Round Rock $75M A H 7 Rio Grande $40M C
Advanced manufacturing
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8 San Gabriel $30M A 9 Elgin $25M A 10 Eastview $15M H S 11 Northridge $15M B 12 Riverside $10M S 13 South Austin $5M S *NEW CAMPUS IN DEL VALLE **EXPANSION & REOPENING
Computer science
24,900 JOBS
Nursing
12,300 JOBS
Computer science associate degrees are available for two di erent tracks including information systems.
SOURCE: LIGHTCAST JOB POSTING ANALYTICS COMMUNITY IMPACT
PHOTOS COURTESY AUSTIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE
more per year for the rst ve years. Expectations of the bond ACC’s most recent bond, passed in 2014, focused on renovations and construction. The 2022 bond will address workforce demand and ful ll the 2021 Master Facilities Plan, which looks at program and campus growth. ACC’s Cypress Creek campus will get expansions for cybersecurity; the Northridge campus is receiving expansions for business and student services, and the San Gabriel campus is getting expansions for advanced manufacturing. Beyond the local impact to Northwest Austin, the bond would expand computer science and cybersecurity at Rio Grande; advanced manufacturing, entrepreneurship and cybersecurity at Highland; and health care facilities and student services at Eastview. It would also increase student services at South Austin and Riverside campuses; create general education programs at the Pinnacle Campus; and create a new building for nursing at the Highland campus, which will double its capacity for nursing
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students.
The bond will create space for high-demand programs through physical expansions to all ACC cam- puses, ACC Board Chair Nan McRa- ven said. McRaven attributed the passing of the bond to the college’s reputation for a ordable education and its wide reach in the area. The average yearly tuition of 30 credit hours for a full- time student is $2,550 for the 2022-23 year—the same rate ACC has o ered for nine years. ACC serves the largest number of students among Austin’s higher education institutions, and sees about 80% of graduates join the Central Texas workforce, said Syd- ney Pruitt, ACC communications specialist. “[The community] know[s] that we are really the No. 1 provider of the workforce,” McRaven said. Due to rising property values, the multimillion dollar bond was able to pass without ACC increasing its tax rate. At its existing tax rate—$0.0987 per $100 valuation—a taxpayer with a home worth $500,000 would pay $5
The bond will also create two more ACC campuses. The rst is the Pinnacle Campus
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in Oak Hill that closed in May 2018 and will be reopened for
general education programs, Pruitt said. ACC will not reopen the original Pinnacle building due to high costs, but will build a separate facility next door at the 55-acre site o Hwy. 290. Pruitt said there are no plans for the vacated building at this time. The second is a campus solely dedicated to advanced manufacturing—manufacturing that incorporates new technologies, such as 3D printing, during production, Pruitt said. The campus will be built on a 124-acre plot of land in southeast Travis County near the airport that ACC acquired from its 2014 bond. The ACC board will have a workshop in January to discuss how the bond should be rolled out. However, McRa- ven said building the new Southeast Travis County and Pinnacle facilities as
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well as expanding the Hays campus are the top priorities. Impact on workforce Between the new Southeast Travis County campus and four other expansions throughout ACC, advanced manufacturing is receiving the biggest chunk of funding from the bond. McRaven said this decision to focus on advanced manufacturing was made in response to the growing demand Tesla, Samsung Austin Semiconductor and other companies that have recently broken ground in Austin have created for workers. Since January, Texas has seen a
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