In 2014, the Austin Chamber and four area school districts partnered for the second straight year to provide "summer melt" interventions. These interventions focused on increasing direct-to-college enrollment rates for first generation and low-income college aspirants. The results are in: interventions in the summer of 2014 led to an enrollment increase of 16%-18% for first-generation and low-income students. This has led to an expansion to all nine school districts who are participating in DTC70. More information about the Ray Marshall Center study on Summer Melt can be found here.

What is “Summer Melt”?

Summer melt is when a high school graduate fails to enroll in college the following fall, despite expressing desire to matriculate. Some barrier occurs, like failure to get a Bacterial Meningitis vaccine, and the student “melts” away from the transition to college process.

To combat summer melt, the Chamber invests $70,000/year to fund interventions and school districts provide the staffing.

How Do the "Summer Melt" Interventions Work?

• Identify why students won't enroll. The Chamber surveys exiting seniors to determine where they still have gaps in their preparation.
• Send target texts sent to recent graduates. Based upon these gaps, the college counselor can send/receive targeted texts.
• Provide workshops at ACC. Austin Community College provides hands-on workshops for completion of specific items in the enrollment process, like how to verify parent’s income to release financial aid.

Why this matters

In November 2015, Central Texas employers posted 48,000 job openings, half of which require at least a bachelor degree and 15% of which require at least an associate degree. The Chamber and the DTC70 Compact school districts will be successful this year in increasing direct college enrollees by 1,400 students to reach a total of 9,400 matriculates. We applaud our school district partners.