Texas Reskilling Support Fund Grant Program

The Texas Reskilling Support Fund Grant Program is a $46.5 million fund established to provide essential emergency educational support to students that have been most significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and aid in the continuation of their education and economic recovery.

Reskilling Grants to institutions will support displaced Texas workers who need to reskill or upskill to get back into the workforce and Texas students who have previously stopped out of higher education institutions without completing a postsecondary credential.

Funding Source

The Texas Reskilling Support Fund Grant Program stems from the allocation of $175 million provided to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board from the Governor’s Emergency Educational Relief (GEER) Fund. GEER dollars, in turn, originate from the U.S. Department of Education’s administration of the Education Stabilization Fund in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act of 2020. The CARES Act (HR 748/S 3548 of the 116th Congress) was signed into law on March 27, 2020.

Grant Purpose

Reskilling Grants will allow institutions to provide financial assistance to Texas students through coverage of student tuition and fees. The grants will support students pursuing high value credentials who are near completion of their postsecondary credential and re-enrolling to complete a postsecondary credential. Reskilling Grants are intended to be deployed as quickly as reasonably possible during the grant period.

Reskilling Grantees Rounds One and Two

The first round of awards under the Texas Reskilling Support Fund Grant Program was announced in January 2021. Through a competitive Request for Applications (RFA) process, forty applicants representing forty-nine institutions were selected. In early 2021 a second round of the competitive RFA process for Reskilling Grants was held. In March 2021 THECB announced an additional twenty-five awards to thirty-one institutions.

Reskilling Grant Resources

High value credentials are central to the goal of Texas Reskilling Support Fund Grant Program. Reskilling grantees were urged to consult appropriate data resources and undertake stakeholder consultations to determine regional and local high value workforce credentials for support. The Texas Workforce Commission’s Target Occupations regional lists are an important resource for state and regional labor market information.

THECB has provided a new resource for public Institutions of Higher Education seeking information and data on high value credentials. The Brookings Institution has created the Texas Workforce Development Toolkit which offers data sourced from THECB, Texas Workforce Commission, and Burning Glass. The toolkit features growth projection and occupational value metrics, with data and analytics broken down by Texas workforce regions. It may be accessed here: Toolkit

An Information Session on the Texas Workforce Development Toolkit was hosted by Brookings Institution on November 9, 2020. The session recording may be found at the link below.

Webinar - https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/GYNByGXCZykrnHmIHdZitNaGc643pUBJV91_toIFnsqx2voFTGdfpgw9eRPxEOSi.bvZKSf0aq_etkmdd
Passcode: 5X0R%BNR Be sure to use the passcode to access the recording. The session starts around six minutes in.

On June 22, 2021 THECB launched a workshop series for Reskilling grantees. The first workshop focused on Innovations in Adult Learner Outreach and Engagement. A link to a recording of the workshop may be found below as well as listing of links to resources on the subject.

Workshop 1 - https://zoom.us/rec/share/HIkHw2kGxSTOB9Yz__TjCdZFfeXlLBSwLj06Jcta4RKFu_92_NCKcXgHj6YWtlhV.fqlkT88kEE-3ausS?startTime=1624386621000
Passcode: 5X0R%BNT