Founded in 1985,<\/a> Palo Alto College is often referred to as \u201cthe college that wasn\u2019t supposed to be,\u201d as Garza put it. Located on the South Side of San Antonio, the mostly Mexican-American, working-class neighborhood whose residents were not seen as the \u201ccollege-going\u201d type.\u00a0<\/p>\nDespite the misconceptions, in 1983 the Texas Legislature approved the creation of a third college in the Alamo Community Colleges District network, now known as Alamo Colleges District.<\/p>\n
Two years later and before a campus even existed, the college welcomed its first class of 231 students who took classes across the community, in high schools, community centers and military bases.<\/p>\n
The college\u2019s first president Terry Dicianna was named in 1985. Officials also broke ground on the first phase of the campus, located on a 98-acre parcel of land at Loop 410 and Hwy 16 South. This was initially designed to house up to 2,000 students.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHere we are for 40 years of care and corazon,\u201d Garza said. \u201cIt\u2019s an overwhelming joy that we get to see our community, our students come together and really take advantage of the opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the last 10 years, the college continued to evolve, Garza said, not only by growing its enrollment from just under 9,000 students in 2016 to nearly 16,000 this year, but by accommodating to the demands of the students and the workforce.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn us bringing in our nursing program \u2014 the only nursing program south of Highway 90 in the Southside community \u2014 our dental hygiene program, our welding program, our bachelor\u2019s of business management program. I think [people will] see that we\u2019re here to say that we have developed enough programs so that there is really something for everyone,\u201d Garza said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In ten years, the second graders will be back to reopen that capsule, which for now will be kept in the Ozuna Library and Learning Center.<\/p>\n
Garza hopes that these students and their families find a compelling program to enroll in at Palo Alto, he said. His goal for the next decade is to continue adding pathways of interest to students, and expanding access to programs in high demand such as welding, nursing or automotive, programs that could lead students both into the workforce and into four-year degrees.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTen years ago we were a transfer institution and we took pride in our students coming here and transferring to four-year institutions.\u201d Garza said. \u201cNow we have some very high value programs. So if you want to transfer, that\u2019s great. We\u2019re going to help you do that. But now we have other options.\u201d<\/p>\n
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3D puzzle, a Millennium Falcon and My Little Pony, were just some of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":599347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[258274,62371,5229,258275,57425,72488,258276,7202,7203,358,3187,7815,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7819],"class_list":["post-599346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-40-year-anniversary","tag-alamo-colleges-district","tag-america","tag-ozuna-library-and-learning-center","tag-pac","tag-palo-alto-college","tag-robert-garza","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-typedaily","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wc-500-750"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_182240th-PAC-Time-Capsule-eveny-02172026.jpg\")
At a ceremony meant to commemorate the Palo Alto College\u2019s 40th anniversary. Second graders from Miguel Carrillo Jr. Elementary School left behind memories that will be revisited in ten years. Credit: Courtesy\/ Palo Alto College<\/p>\n