Project overview
At the University of Texas at Austin, students show up with big ambitions. A new initiative is designed to ensure they have the individualized support and resources they need to persist through college, graduate, and bring those ambitions to life.
Income status should not be an indicator of whether a student graduates or attends college. Nationally, however, family wealth is linked to a student’s odds of enrolling and graduating from college. The University of Texas at Austin recognizes this gap and has placed programs and support systems to mitigate this barrier, working to ensure that all students have the opportunity to succeed and meet their academic goals.
UT for Me – Powered by Dell Scholars launched in fall 2020 as a new initiative that builds on the proven model of the Dell Scholars program.
Every student who works hard and wants to go to college to earn their degree should have an opportunity to do that.
Susan Dell
How it helps
Many students are blazing a new trail for their families as the first to enroll in college. The opportunities are tremendous – but they can also come with a lot of pressure.
The higher education landscape can be tricky to navigate, especially for those without an example to follow. Outside the classroom, college students are also parents, children, friends, and employees, with a range of responsibilities competing for their time, energy, and focus.
That’s why UT for Me – Powered by Dell Scholars provides individualized support, tailored to the needs of each student. Services and resources include:
- Personalized, multi-faceted support
- Financial aid coaching and financial literacy training
- Access to emergency funds for students facing a significant financial hardship
- Textbook credits
- A new laptop computer
- Peer advising support
- Internship and career planning
- Connections to university resources and programming
- On-track graduation planning
Students with the greatest level of financial need become Dell Scholars at UT Austin, receiving a $20,000 scholarship over their time in college. For Texas residents, that funding comes on top of the University’s Texas Advance Commitment, which guarantees aid to cover the full cost of tuition and fees for Texas families earning $65,000 or less.
About the partnership
Bringing together the established success of the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation and The University of Texas, this initiative represents the most significant philanthropic contribution in the university’s history that is focused exclusively on student success and upward mobility.
The partnership builds on the model of the Dell Scholars program, which has increased graduation rates for Pell-eligible students at a rate 50% above the national average. It will bring those efforts to scale at UT Austin, which has increased its overall graduation rates by nearly 20 percentage points since 2018. Longer-term, the initiative aims to create a national model for supporting student success.
