The topic of recruitment of Hispanics to college comes up every once in a while; it's a favorite for John Consalvi and me. We both have this urgency about recruiting more Latinos to universities and graduate school. We can never do enough in this area.
Another report is out that I thought was interesting. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a Pew Hispanic Center report of a U.S. Department of Education's National Educational Longitudinal Survey. So I'm giving you the 4th down edition highlights. The survey tracked a representative sample of 25,000 students across the country from 1988, when they were eighth graders, through 2000, when most were 26 years of age.
The following are some highlights.
- Hispanic students are only half as likely to complete a bachelor's degree as their non-Hispanic white peers, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center.
- Hispanic high-school graduates enroll at about the same rate as their white counterparts, but they finish college at lower rates. That's because Hispanic students are more likely than white students to attend nonselective institutions with low graduation rates and because the Hispanic students‚ individual circumstances sometimes make completion more difficult.
- Hispanic students across the board, from the top high-school graduates to those least prepared for college, finish bachelor's degrees at lower rates than their white counterparts do.
- The best-prepared Hispanic studentsùthose in the top 20 percent in terms of the rigor of their high-school courses graduate at lower rates than similarly prepared white students. Among the best-prepared at nonselective institutions, 81 percent of white students finish their degrees, but only 57 percent of Hispanic students do.
- Among students who are "minimally qualified" for college, a ranking that takes into account grades, class rank, and test scores in addition to course difficulty, Hispanic students fare worse in college than white students. Of those who attend two-year college, 7 percent of Hispanic students go on to complete bachelor's degrees, compared with 16 percent of white students.
- Hispanic students‚ college choices are affected by a variety of circumstances, some of which are more common among those students than among their white peers. Those circumstances include starting college later, financial obligations to their families, and living with their families instead of on a campus while attending college. All of those factors can make degree completion less likely.
- Students at selective colleges are more likely to graduate than those at nonselective institutions, and Hispanic students attending selective colleges are more likely to graduate than those at nonselective institutions. If more well-prepared Hispanic high-school graduates attended the same institutions as equally prepared white students, the gap in graduation rates between the two groups could be significantly reduced.
- For more Hispanic students to enroll at selective colleges, the students must know about their choices.
- Both parents and students don‚t understand the options that are available in higher education and we need to do a better job in helping them understand the wide array of options that are available to them. We have a responsibility to help them be informed students, to help them reach their goals. Full report is available on the Chronicle of Higher Education website.
As I read this report two thoughts came to mind. First, many Latino students have no other option than to stay close to home and attend the "nonselective college" near home. Obligations to family may be necessary and finances may not make it feasible to attend college somewhere else. Friends and family sometimes make the unknown "college culture" tolerable. If the student does leave for an out of state education, the "pull" from home in the form of loneliness, foods, activities, friends, use of Spanish, faculty teaching styles and mom, may be enough for the student to leave.
Second, more selective colleges would be wonderful for our high achieving Latino students. But to get students there, colleges need to be aggressive in recruitment and have big financial aid packages for students to attend. Once there, these schools need to have a program to retain students.
I agree that parents and students probably don't understand the options in higher education and that going to a selective school may mean a better chance of graduation.
I got my Hispanic Alumni Newsletter from the University of Arizona and they reported on a program in South Tucson that is doing just this. They're providing parents and students with information about college and what it'll take to get there and stay in until graduation. One of our Latino faculty in anthropology here at Saint Louis University will be starting something similar but through our University Ministry Office. We'll be reaching out to the parishes and Latino high school students in St. Louis.
This type of information is good, it's disappointing, and yet it's important for us to know so that we can understand where we need to put our efforts. It's not enough to get them into college, we've also got to get Latino students into good universities.
