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Wednesday, April 30, 2008
By Rodrigo Haro
Staff Writer
A higher percentage of Hispanic students than whites are enrolling in college, but their graduation rate is still way behind.
Since the early nineties the Hispanic community has seen an influx of high school students enrolling into college. Motivated by the endless and aggressive college marketing in public high-schools, Hispanic students are flooding college campuses and higher-education institutions, mostly community colleges, like never before. Currently, Hispanics trail only Asians in terms of college enrollment by minorities.
A 2002 study by the Pew Hispanic Center (PHC) titled Latinos in Higher Education: Many Enroll, Too Few Graduate, reported that “Twenty-five percent of Hispanic college students ages 18- to 24- years old are enrolled part-time compared to only 15 percent of their white peers”, this is by far one, if not the key finding in the report.
So if more Hispanics are attending college, why is this not visible on college campuses?
The downside to the influx of Hispanic college students is that they are not attending traditional four-year universities. Most Hispanic college students are attending two-year and community colleges, attending part-time, or are over what would be considered the traditional college age (18-24). The PHC report found that “Many Latinos are attending two-year institutions--40 percent compared to 25 percent of white and black students in that age group. Moreover, some 7 percent of Latino high school graduates over the age of 24 years old are enrolled in college courses compared to 5 percent of whites.”
What’s even worse is that most of these students never make it to a four-year institution. Most of them complete a two year program and find it difficult to transfer over to a traditional university, because of lack of financial-aid or pressure of family to enter the workforce full time. Some also simply lose the motivation to succeed, due in part to inadequate high school preparation, and end up dropping out.
“Although Hispanic students are entering colleges in equitable droves to their white peers, the Pew Hispanic Center found Hispanic college students nationwide were half as likely to graduate” K.C. Howard of The Review-Journal wrote.
Most of these Hispanics come from high schools where college preparation programs are inadequate or non-existent. Instead of rigorously trying to prepare their students for college academic life these inner city and poor performing high schools are bombarding their students with false promises and the dreams of college life. Since freshmen year these high schools focus on the importance of enrolling in college and run a motivational-driven campaign, but do little to prepare the students for the rigors of academia. They essentially preach, but don’t teach; effectively making these low performing schools are more of a motivation seminar than a college preparatory academy.
“White youth beginning at community colleges are nearly twice as likely as Hispanic youth beginning at community colleges to finish a bachelor's degree” the PHC reported.
According to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research: “There is also a large difference among racial and ethnic groups in the percentage of students who leave high school eligible for college admission. About 40% of white students, 23% of African-American students, and 20% of Hispanic students who started public high school graduated college-ready in 2002”. Clearly, Hispanic high school graduates are not being prepared for academic life.
Although 1.2 million Hispanics are enrolled in college: “Latino high school graduates lag every other population group in attaining college degrees”. There are, however, many solutions to the retention and graduation rate crisis going on in the Hispanic college community. The Review-Journal suggest that “Universities need to provide more educational and financial programs tailored to Hispanics to make them feel comfortable on campuses, the bulk of which have largely white student bodies” and also “An increased focus on orientation programs that promote cultural resources to minority students has helped keep minority students in class”.
The Pew Hispanic Center also suggests “Academic preparation, understanding of college advancement and graduation requirements and financial aid policies also play important roles.”
Last year the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) conducted research on the top schools that graduate the most Hispanics and found that most of these schools had “on-campus networks encouraging mutual support among Hispanic students. Many institutions also had academic programs in Hispanic studies and special programs for Hispanic students within traditional academic majors.”
The report also found that the “recruiting and supporting Hispanic faculty and staff” projected familiarity and comfort in the Hispanic student body. The study found that “successful institutions underline the importance of an institutional culture that makes Hispanic students feel at home in the college environment and that expects and supports their academic success”.
The Hispanic/Latino population at UIS isn’t that large (in terms of students and faculty), partly because the overall student population hasn’t hit a high enough mark were recruitment for Hispanic students can be possible. There are a couple of Hispanic student organizations on campus, but they certainly lack visibility. That’s understandable. This university is in a growing stage and I’m sure as the school grows more and more diversity will be visible on this campus.
You might be asking yourself, why should I even care about the Hispanic graduation rate?
Well, according to the Pew Hispanic Center “Between the years 2000 and 2025, the white working age population is expected to decline by five million workers, as baby boomers retire from the labor force.” Since the Hispanic population has the highest percentage of college enrollees, it would make sense to focus college retention on them so they can take part of the workload that the baby boomers are leaving behind.
“Efforts to increase the numbers of Latino college graduates will raise the economic prospects, social well-being and civic engagement” (PHC) not just of Hispanics, but of the whole country population as a whole.
