This is because the University has taken advantage of a group of possible customs that is growing: graduates of the Hispanic school as Quintero.
Universities and conferences have not done well in the registration of Hispanic students, who were behind their white classmates in university assistance. Now your own success can depend largely on it.
“Demography in our country is changing, and higher education has to adapt,” said Glena Temple, president of Dominican.
Or, as Quintero said, smiling: “Now they need us.”
A growth pool or potential students
Almost 1 in 3 students In degrees K to 12, Hispanic, reports the National Center for Education Statistics. That is above less than 1 in 4 a decade. The proportion of students in public schools that are Hispanic is equally higher in some states, including California, Texas and Florida.
By 2041, it is projected that the graduate numbers of the White, Black and Asian high school Caigan (in 26 percent, 22 percent and 10 percent, respectively), according to the Western Interestatal Commission for Higher Education, which tracks this. On that same period, the number of Hispanic graduates It is expected to grow for 16 percent.
That makes young thesis, children or granddaughters of immigrants, or immigrants themselves, recently important for schools and universities.
However, at a time when higher education needs thesis students, the proportion of high school Hispanic graduates who are directed directly to the university is lower than for white students and fall. The number fell from 70 percent to 58 percent from 2012 to 2022, according to the National Education Statistics Center. Hispanic students who enroll at the university also leave high rates.
In the past, schools and universities “could reach their [enrollment] Numbers without involving this population, “said Deborah Santiago, executive director of the Latin Defense Organization Excellence in Education.” That is no longer the case. “
A possible solution to imminece workers’ deficit
A good example of the potential to recruit Hispanic students is in the metropolitan area of Kansas City, which includes communities in Missouri and Kansas. The largest school district in the region, Kansas City, Missouri, is now 58 percent Hispanic.
Make at least some of the students register at the University “is what we must be prepared as higher education institutions and meet the needs of our communities,” said Greg Mosier, president of Kansas City Kansas Community College, which begins by advertising the Radioh language.
Answering this changing demography is more than conferences that fill seats, experts say. It will have an impact on the national economy.
About 43 percent of all works Requires at least bachelor’s degrees By 2031, the Education Center of the University of Georgetown and the estimates of the workforce. Researchers say that the projected decrease in the number of university graduates in that period could create serious labor shortages.
In this gloomy scenario, helping to get more Hispanic Americans in a path to jobs that go well, it seems an obvious solution.
Achieving that goal, however, is a challenge, and many educators fear that of Trump administration Attacks against diversity programs It could cause students to recruit and thesis support. The officials of many institutions contacted this did not want to talk about the subject.
Among the other challenges: the average annual family income for Hispanic families is More than 25 percent lower That for white families, says the Census Office, which means that the university may seem out of reach. Many Hispanic students attend public secondary schools with few university counselors.
And 73 percent of Hispanic university students are The first in their families to go to universityMore than for any other group, according to Naspa, an association or student affairs.
These factors can be combined to push Latin young people directly from secondary school to the workforce. Of those who go to university, many work at least part -time while encouraging, something investigating Reduces probability Or graduate.
When Eddie Rivera graduated from high school in North Carolina a decade ago, “the university was really an option. My counselor was there for me. I just followed what my Hispanic culture tells us, that it is going to work.”
Rivera, Who has the state of DacaOr the deferred action for children’s arrivals, worked in a retirement house, an interior springboard park and a hospital for pandemic, where colleagues encouraged him to go to university. With the help of a scholarship program for undocumented students, he ended up in Dominican.
Now, at 28, he is a third year student in international relations and diplomacy. Plan to obtain a master’s degree in foreign policy and national security.
Make an additional effort to welcome Latin students
A small Catholic university that dates back to 1922, Dominican has an has a has a have of the children of immigrants, in previous times of origin of the north and central Europe.
Today, banners with photos of successful Hispanic alumni hang from the lampposts on the 30 acres campus, and a mariachi band directs celebrations on the dead.
Tours are heroes in English and Spanish, students are offered jobs on campus and employees help entire families through medical care, housing and financial crises. In autumn, Dominican added a satellite campus in the Pilsen neighborhood largely Chicago Mexican, providing two -year associated titles oriented to work. Each university student Get financial aidThey show federal data.
“In a basic daily, I find a staff member or teacher who asks me what is happening with my life and how they can support me,” said Aldo Cervantes, a junior business student with a child in accounting who hopes to enter banks or human resources.
There is a family academy for parents, grandparents, brothers and students’ cousins to learn about university resources. As an incentive, families that come to five sessions get credit for their student to take a summer course at no cost.
“When we take a look at the Latin population that goes to university, it is not an individual choice,” said Gabe Lara, vice president of success and commitment, using the favorite term of the university for people of Latin American descent. “It’s a family choice.”
These and other measures have helped duplicate more than double the proportion of Hispanic students here in the last 10 years, almost 70 percent of the 2,570 university students, according to the figures provided by the University.
Like other universities, trying to recruit Hispanic students, “they ask us all the time we could achieve this,” said Temple, president of Dominican. “What they don’t like to listen is that they are all these things. You must be committed to it. It has to be more than filling seats.”
The universities and conferences that are taken seriously the registration of more Hispanic students can find them if they wish, said Sylvia Hurtado, education professor at UCLA. “You don’t have to look far away.”
But, he added, “you need [to provide] Support at each stage. We call it more culturally receptive, more aware of who is recruiting and what their needs could be. “
Universities are beginning to do this, although slowly. UCLA itself did not launch a Spanish version of its admissions website Until 2023Huerado said: “And here we are in California.”
New pressures when Dei comes under fire
Even smaller efforts to register and support Hispanic students are being complicated by the withdrawal of diversity programs and financial aid for undocumented students.
Florida in February A policy ended Or collect the lowest enrollment in the State in public schools and universities to documented students from UND, for example. Other states have imposed or are considering similar measures.
The Trump administration has eliminated a Biden era program to support Hispanic service institutions. And the United States Department of Education, in a letter to the conferences, interpreted the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that prohibits racial preferences in admission as Prohibit “race -based decision makingThe form does not matter. “
While the legal basic for that action has been widely challenged, it has institutions of higher education to the limit.
Experts say that most programs to recruit and support Hispanic students will probably not be affected by Anti-Dei campaigns, since they sacrifice anyone who needs them. “These things work for all students,” said Anne-Marie Núñez, executive director of the Diana Natalicio Institute for the success of Hispanic students at the University of Texas in El Paso.
But without more than the growing Hispanic population that enrolls in conferences, these institutions and the workforce face much larger challenges, Núñez and others said.
“Having successful students is of interest to all,” he said. “The country will be left behind if it does not have not to have all your hands on the deck, including those that education has not served in the past.”
In Dominican, Genaro Balcazar leads registration and marketing strategies as director of Operations. Hey, also has a pragmatic way to see it.
“We address the needs of students not for who they are,” said Balcazar, “but because they need help.”
This story was produced by The Hechinger reportA non -profit independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.
