As higher ed faces pressure to reform, Abbott picks new state leaders

Stacy Hock — philanthropist, private investor and 2020 Victory Chairwoman of the Texas GOP — will now lead the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the top state authority overseeing colleges and universities.

The coordinating board serves an important, but largely behind-the-scenes, role in broadening access to higher education for Texas families, distributing financial aid, approving degree programs, analyzing student data and monitoring universities for compliance with state laws.

Its work is largely nonpolitical. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Hock, who has served on the coordinating board since 2024, to lead the board at a time he and other Republican leaders are pressuring institutions to rid course content of “leftist ideology.” The pressure raised alarm bells for free speech and academic freedom proponents, who fear it will compromise the independence of the institutions.

Hock said she wants to build on the board’s previous work improving higher education access to ensure more Texans have a valuable degree and guiding students in selecting degrees. But the board is also analyzing core curriculum to ensure alignment with state values and will ensure institutions are meeting their responsibility to the state, Hock said.

“At the end of the day, institutions — we do want to respect their autonomy to manage themselves,” Hock said. “One area that we do want to reinforce or be supportive of, is where the state has expressed ideals for higher ed … about free inquiry and free speech and pursuit of truth and knowledge.”

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Abbott promoted Hock after previous chair Fred Farias resigned to take a senior leadership role at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her adult life has been marked by a focus on education through volunteering, philanthropy and policy, particularly in the K-12 space, she told the Austin-American Statesman. 

Hock serves on the advisory board of the University of Austin, a new private institution seeking accreditation that has openly critiqued higher education as having lost its way, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank in Austin. Professionally, Hock worked in senior management in the software industry, including at IBM.

A self-described analytical brain, Hock said she was drawn to the coordinating board because of its focus on the “landscape at large” of higher education and its work to remove obstacles that gets in the way of student success and empower institutions to succeed. 

As chair, she wants to further ease students’ paths from high school to higher education and better align degrees to have a positive return on investment, while also ensuring the state is best preparing graduates to be flexible in a rapidly changing workforce.

“I’m a lifelong Texan, born and raised, and fell in love with the value of education,” Hock said. “I want Texas to lead the nation in what higher ed can look like.”

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Texas is leading. At a time when the nation faces steep enrollment cliffs due to population drop-offs, the state hit an all-time high in higher education enrollment this year with more than 1.6 million students in attendance. This represents a 4.7% jump from last fall, according to the agency’s preliminary data. Every region in the state saw growth.

Hock praised the state’s recent free application week, authorized by the Texas Legislature this year, and direct admission options for students to improve access. 

“It is very behind the scenes and appropriately so,” Hock said of the coordinating board’s role. “But I think we see the fruit of their work in the fact that our higher ed landscape is becoming more robust and better all the time. I’m very proud of that.”

Hock isn’t the only new state leader in the higher education space. The newly passed Senate Bill 37 tasks the coordinating board with housing a new Office of Ombudsman to ensure universities are meeting state laws around diversity, equity and inclusion and free speech. According to a legislative budget analysis the bill authorizes nine full-time positions, including one filled by Brandon Simmons. Simmons will serve as the director of institutional policy and oversight for higher education, starting Jan. 1.

Simmons, who the governor’s office declined to make available for an interview, is the former chairman of Texas Southern University’s Board of Regents, a historically Black university in Houston. He is a professor of business, former law clerk and prolific board member in the Houston area. Previously, he served as an executive at a technology company and a venture capitalist.  

He is “an advocate for the transformational power of capitalism and proponent of policies and programs that leverage the economy to unlock opportunity and success for individuals and families,” according to his regent biography.

Senate Bill 37 mandates university regents review core curriculum and degrees to ensure workforce readiness and a positive return on investment. 

Data maintained by the coordinating board will allow leaders to understand where students see a positive return on investment in their degrees and where further investment is needed to match workforce demands, Hock said.

The data also allows the board to track where more improvement is needed, such as to support transfer students.

“Because we are tracking data across the entire system, it puts us in a unique place to be able to equip the legislative body and the leaders of our state across both the political administration, but also across the institutions, to have information that they can make decisions on,” Hock said. 

The coordinating board’s current strategic plan aims for at least 60% of working age Texans to have a higher education credential and to encourage the growth of “credentials of value” that have a positive return on investment for students. 

“There’s always room for improvement. We’re not done,” Hock said. “We’d like to see even more of our workforce equipped with credentials going forward.”