Hispanic Enrollment Reaches New High

#72 Hispanic Enrollment Reaches New High At Four-Year Colleges In The U.S.

Episode Description:

According to Pew Research In the last few decades, Hispanic enrollment at postsecondary institutions in the U.S. has seen an exponential increase. Rising from 1.5 million in 2000 to a new high of 3.8 million in 2019 – partly reflecting the rapid growth of Hispanics as a share of the overall U.S. population.

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However, despite this boom in enrollment, the obstacle of affordability still remains.

Furthermore, a report by TheDream.US and Golden Door Scholars shows their graduates have a 94 percent workforce participation rate, compared to the 84 percent rate for college graduates nationally.

What is going on everyone? This is the LEO podcast… where we talk about various educational topics… especially those impacting the Latin American community.

For today’s episode, we’re going to take a deeper look at Hispanic enrollment over the years and how it’s more than doubled in the last two decades.

We’ll also be going over a report showing Undocumented college graduates who take part in two major scholarship programs end up having a higher workforce participation rate than graduates in the general population.

If you’re listening to this episode on the day that it’s released, then that means today is Monday, November 21st. And if you want early access to episodes and bonus content, then head over to our patreon.com/latinamericaneo and become part of our Palomitas community!

But if you’re not a patron yet, no worries! You can still enjoy this episode. It’s packed with great content.

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Topic 1: Hispanic enrollment

For many Hispanic students, the thought of going to college seems out of reach. If they do end up going to college many of them are the first in their family. In fact in 2021, only about a quarter of Latinos aged, 25 to 29 (or 23%) had earned a bachelor’s degree which is up from 14% in 2010 but still relatively low when compared to 45% of White Americans and 72% of Asian Americans ages 25 to 29.

Taking a closer look, Hispanic women ages 25 to 29 were actually more likely than Hispanic men in the same age range to have a college degree. A pattern that is also seen among other racial and ethnic groups.

It’s essential to keep in mind that there are many factors that contribute to the low college-going rate among Hispanics, including a lack of access to quality education and financial resources.

And believe me when I say transitioning from high school to college as a first gen college student whose family isn’t familiar with the U.S. higher education system and financial aid is extremely challenging. There can also be a language barrier and cultural reluctance to move away from family and take out loans for school.

But despite the many challenges that Hispanics face. It’s important to remind ourselves that the Hispanic population is growing faster than most other racial and ethnic groups and that it is much younger, meaning that the opportunity is prime for increasing the college-going rate.

In fact, a recent article by Pew research shows us that Hispanic enrollment reached a new high at four-year colleges in the U.S. Even during the first year of the pandemic enrollment from Hispanics continued to rise by about 140,000 students or 6 percent from 2019 to 2020.

Even more assuring is that Hispanic enrollment at such institutions has increased every year for decades. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of Latinos enrolled at four-year institutions jumped from 620 thousand to 2.4 million, a 287 percent! Increase. By comparison, overall student enrollment at four-year institutions in the U.S. grew by 50 percent during this time.

Latinos make up a growing share of all students enrolled at postsecondary institutions. In 1980, about 470,000 Latinos enrolled at degree-granting postsecondary institutions, accounting for 4% of all students. By 2000, Latino enrollment had increased to 1.5 million, or 10% of all students. And by 2020, 3.7 million Latinos were enrolled, accounting for a fifth of all postsecondary students.

However, despite the growing enrollment, relatively small shares of young Hispanics are enrolled in college or have obtained a bachelor’s degree. In 2021, about three-in-ten Latinos ages 18 to 24 (or 32 percent) were enrolled at least part-time in college, a similar share to Black Americans (33 percent) and a lower share than among White (37 percent) and Asian (58 percent) adults of the same age. Among Latinos, some 35 percent of young women 18 to 24 were enrolled at least part-time in college in 2021, compared with 28 percent of men of the same age group.

So overall this report from Pew research shows us that a 62 percent majority of U.S. adults ages 25 and older do not have a bachelor’s degree, including about eight-in-ten Hispanics (or 79%).

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As I mentioned earlier in the episode, there are many barriers that Hispanics have to overcome to get a college degree in the U.S., but the major one is financial constraints.

It’s already true that financial considerations are a key reason why Americans in general overall do not complete a four-year degree, but this is particularly true for Hispanics, according to an October 2021 Pew Research Center Survey.

These affordability restrictions may include the overall cost of college, lack of reliable transportation, or a desire to not take on debt. In fact, Hispanics are actually more likely than other students to avoid taking on debt and more likely to report difficulties paying back student loans.

When it comes to personal factors playing a role in college completion. Close to half of Hispanics who have not obtained a four-year degree (or 47 percent) say they just did not want to pursue one. There is, however, a notable difference by gender, with 54 percent of Hispanic men and 40% of Hispanic women citing this as a reason for not finishing college.

Other factors also play a role. Among Latinos without a bachelor’s degree, about four in ten (or 42 percent) say they did not think they would get into a four-year college – a significantly higher share than among White Americans (with 22 percent). In addition, 27 percent of Latinos without a bachelor’s degree say they did not think they needed a four-year degree for the job or career they wanted. This is similar to the share of Black Americans who say the same, (41 percent) but lower than the share of White Americans (49 percent).

From my experience, I personally think that involving families as early as middle school is important to increasing educational attainment for Latino students.

It’s important to not only educate families on the importance of higher education but also to educate ourselves on what would benefit us the most. Latino students often lack financial literacy, overestimate the cost of college, and tend to avoid loans.

This is why it’s crucial that Latinos and especially those that are immigrants are aware early on in their lives that they CAN go to college and that there ARE scholarships out there specifically dedicated to helping us with the financial burden of attaining higher education.

In fact, there was a recent report by TheDream.US and Golden Door Scholars — two groups that finance and mentor undocumented students — showing their graduates having a 94 percent workforce participation rate, compared to the 84 percent rate for college graduates nationally.

The report surveyed 1,400 graduates of the programs, who attended 140 colleges and universities throughout the country.

The report also found that alumni of the two programs are overwhelmingly employed in high-demand sectors: 22 percent of graduates are in the health and medical field; 19 percent in business; 18 percent in education; 17 percent in public and social services, and 13 percent in science, math, and technology.

However, the report does state that because 86 percent of their graduates are beneficiaries of the Obama-era DACA or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that many of those graduates could soon find themselves without the legal ability to work in the United States.

If this were the case companies, schools, and hospitals would lose their trained workforce because of Congress’s inability to deliver on a popular and needed solution.

THE END

That’s all for today on the LEO podcast. I’m Kevin Muñoz and as always feel free to send me a message with your thoughts or with any interesting topic that you’d like to see covered.

and for those of you on Patreon, I’ll see you there.

Otherwise, I’ll see you all in next week’s episode!

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