Texas College Bridge Announces Program Expansion and Updates
College readiness program, established in 2020, to introduce TSIA2 Test Preparation program to its bundle of student-readiness offerings in Fall 2026
January 08, 2026 – The NROC Project (NROC) announced expansion plans for Texas College Bridge, the respected college preparatory program launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the addition of TSIA2 test preparation courses for 8th to 11th graders as well as upgrades to NROC’s proprietary EdReady adaptive learning platform. Texas College Bridge is an online college-preparatory course facilitated by high school instructors, launched in 2020 by The Commit Partnership (Commit) and NROC, to ensure Texas students have a high-quality option for demonstrating college readiness without having to excel on a high-stakes exam like the SAT or ACT. Designed specifically to meet each student’s individual needs while also attending to ease of district implementation, successful completion of the program enables graduating high school seniors to enroll directly in credit-bearing college coursework without having to take costly remediation classes, saving both time and money.
“Over the past few years, as we moved beyond the pandemic, it became clear that the initial program should not only continue but also expand to address the wider range of readiness needs that students have, starting in the 8th grade up to their senior year,” said Ahrash Bissell, President of The NROC Project. “NROC’s mission is to improve educational outcomes and opportunities for everyone. With our program expansion, powered by the award-winning EdReady platform, our goal is to be the universal bridge to college-level studies in Texas, regardless of grade level.”
Offered at no cost to students, Texas College Bridge (TCB) provides personalized, self-paced coursework in mathematics and English language arts. The program is part of the Texas College Preparatory Program, established by the Texas Legislature through House Bill 5 in 2013, and currently serves as one of several pathways to college readiness for students.
The TCB Test Preparation program, also consisting of teacher-facilitated mathematics and English language arts courses, is specifically designed to help students in the 8th – 11th grades prepare for the Texas Success Initiative Assessment, or TSIA2. This Spring, more than 100 school districts are piloting the new TCB Test Prep program and will provide feedback on different strategies for maximizing the new program’s positive impact. The full program will be automatically added to all participating TCB district partners in Fall 2026, at no additional cost.
“Texas College Bridge has been an important tool in the broader effort to strengthen college readiness and postsecondary success across Texas,” said Todd Williams, Chairman and CEO of The Commit Partnership. “Programs like TCB expand opportunity for students who need flexible, high-quality options. We are proud of the role Commit played in helping launch Texas College Bridge during a time of unprecedented learning disruption, and we’re grateful to NROC for its leadership and stewardship as the program moves forward.”
Additional plans for the 2025/2026 school year include expanding the program’s independent evaluation study, now in its fifth year, plus ongoing enhancements to the EdReady platform. These updates will include further improvements to the platform’s reporting capabilities, security and anti-cheating measures, and certificate and essay functionalities – based on user feedback and in response to district and student needs. There are also plans to further expand the extensive, onboard library of multimedia and interactive learning resources to provide even more options for students to attain and reinforce their mastery of critical math and English skills. These improvements culminate the latest round of investments in TCB since NROC assumed fiscal responsibility for the program from Commit at the start of the 2024-25 academic year.
Four years of independent evaluations by the Cicero Group, a nationally recognized research organization, confirm that the TCB program can significantly improve student preparedness and success in college-level studies. On average, students who successfully complete the TCB program perform as well or better in college English and Math coursework as their peers who met TSI standards by other means, such as high GPAs or test scores. Now that the program has several years of data to draw from, NROC is investing additional resources to more closely examine variation in outcomes (e.g., by district or by destination college) to provide more guidance and support to district partners for supporting eligible students and implementing the program effectively. More than 600 districts across the state participate in TCB, and the majority of Texas public higher education institutions accept TCB as an indicator of college readiness, including 97% of Texas community colleges.
“For thousands of academically at-risk students, who otherwise may not have felt capable of pursuing higher education, the Texas College Bridge program has been life transforming,” said Timi Creekmore, Executive Director at TCB. “We are very grateful to The Commit Partnership for their support in launching our program, helping us grow our network of participating schools and colleges, and setting us up for continued success in our student-focused mission.”
About Texas College Bridge
Texas College Bridge was launched in 2020 with grant funding from Texas Education Agency (TEA) to assist school districts with their students’ college preparedness needs during the COVID pandemic when administration of SAT, ACT, and TSIA were put on hold. The online HB 5 college prep course was designed to ensure that students who were identified as underprepared for college—based on GPA, standardized test score(s), or another conventional measure—were provided the opportunity to address their math and English gaps and matriculate to a participating college. Since its inception, more than 600 school districts have utilized the program, facilitating more than 550,000 course completions and helping thousands of at-risk students get ready for college – students who otherwise may not have felt capable of obtaining a postsecondary credential that can lead to more employment options and greater earnings.
About The NROC Project
The NROC Project (NROC), founded in 2003, is a national, 501c3 nonprofit organization that collaborates with educators to imagine, develop, test, and refine technologies that improve student success in college and career. NROC partners represent secondary, postsecondary, and adult educational institutions committed to co-creating and deploying learner-centered solutions to thorny educational problems. As a mission-based organization, NROC transparently leverages all available data in order to help meet society’s need for access to effective, high-quality educational opportunities in an era of rapid economic, social, and personal change. More information about the intersection of NROC’s mission and the TCB program is available here.
Check out the full five year retrospective on Texas College Bridge.
