Lately UTSA is giving Latino students a full tour with the help of the South Texas Legal Fortune
Beginning this fall, 15 first-generation Latino students will receive full tuition at the University of Texas at San Antonio with a $2.4 million grant from the Hector and Gloria López Foundation.
Students will be selected on the basis of need and will be named López Scholars, with tuition and fees covered for the next five years.
To qualify, students must show financial need, be the first in their families to attend college, and have lived in or graduated from high school in the El Paso, Austin, San Antonio, South Texas, and Rio Grande Valley areas. The foundation was established in 2021 to support post-secondary education attainment among Latino students in those regions.
“I am immensely grateful for the generosity of the Hector and Gloria López Foundation and their support for our vision to become a national model for student success, enabling all students, regardless of their background, to succeed,” he said UTSA President Taylor Eighmy in a news release.
“This grant will have a direct impact on our students who are gaining the skills needed to build a talent pipeline that will grow the workforce for our city, region and state,” he added.
UTSA officials said the grant recognizes UTSA’s role in the region as a Hispanic service institution and its efforts to create pathways toward high-quality education for Latinos in the region.
The foundation is based on the accumulated land and financial assets of Hector and Gloria López, now deceased. They were of Mexican descent, raised in Texas, attended college, and settled in Alice, where they ran a law firm focused on real estate and oil and gas leases.
UTSA is among the latest recipients of that grant from the foundation, which also awarded a $2.1 million gift to Texas A&M University-San Antonio in 2022.
“It is important for young Latinos to see a clear path to success, and UTSA is a key contributor to making Latino dreams a reality,” said Sergio Rodríguez, CEO of the foundation and grandson of Hector and Gloria López.
“The University of Texas at San Antonio is an ideal recipient of a López Foundation grant because of its infrastructure serving first-generation and low-income students, its programs to increase Latino representation, and because it resides in a city with a population majority Latino,” he said.
