Indeed, the university has exploited a group of potential customers that are developing: Hispanic secondary graduates such as Quintero.
Universities and colleges have still not succeeded in registering Hispanic students, who are lagging behind their white peers in university attendance. Now their own success can largely depend on it.
“The demographic data of our country change and higher education must adapt,” said Glena Temple, president of the Dominican.
Or, as Quintero said, smiling: “Now they need us.”
A growing basin of potential students
Almost 1 in 3 students In classes K at 12 is Hispanic, reports the National Center for Education Statistics. This represents less than 1 in 4 ten years ago. The proportion of students in Hispanic public schools is even higher in certain states, including California, Texas and Florida.
By 2041, the number of graduates of white, black and Asian secondary should fall (26%, 22%and 10%, respectively), according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, which follows this. During this same period, the number of Hispanic graduates should grow 16%.
This makes these young people – often children or grandchildren of immigrants, or immigrants themselves – newly important for colleges and universities.
However, at a time when higher education needs these students, the proportion of Hispanic secondary graduates heading directly to the university is lower than for white students and the fall. The number increased from 70% to 58% from 2012 to 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Hispanic students who register in college also abandon at higher rates.
In the past, colleges and universities “could strike their number (registration) without engaging this population,” said Deborah Santiago, Director General of the Defense Organization of the Latin Excelencia in education. “This is no longer the case.”
A possible solution to loom workers’ deficits
A good example of the potential for recruiting Hispanic students is in the metropolitan region of Kansas City, which includes communities in Missouri and Kansas. The largest school district in the region, Kansas City, MO., is now 58% Hispanic.
Bringing at least some of these students to register for the college “is what we have to prepare as higher education establishments and to meet the needs of our communities,” said Greg Mosier, president of Kansas City Kansas Community, who began to advertise the Spanish newspapers and Spanish language.
Responding to this changing demographic data is more than the colleges that fill out seats, according to experts. This will have an impact on the national economy.
About 43% of all jobs require at least one baccalaureate By 2031, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the labor estimates. The expected decline in the number of college graduates during this period, according to the researchers, could create serious shortages of labor.
In this dark scenario, helping to obtain more Hispanic Americans on a path to more paid jobs seems an obvious solution.
It is however difficult to achieve this objective, and many educators fear that the Trump administration Attacks against diversity programs could make recruitment and support these students even harder. The managers of many institutions contacted on this subject did not want to talk about the subject.
Among other challenges: the annual median income of households for Hispanic families is More than 25% lower That for white families, says the census office, which means that college may seem out of reach. Many Hispanic students attend public secondary schools with few university advisers.
And 73% of Hispanic undergraduate students are The first in their family to go to universityMore than for any other group, according to Naspa, an association of student business administrators.
These factors can be combined to push young Latinos directly from high school to the labor market. Among those who go to university, many work at least part -time while they learn, something that research finds reduces the probability graduate.
When Eddie Rivera obtained her secondary school diploma in North Carolina a decade ago, “the university was not really an option. My advisor was not there for me. I just followed what my Hispanic culture tells us, which is to go to work. ”
Rivera, Who has DACA statusOr delayed action for children’s arrivals, worked in a retirement home, an interior trampoline park and a hospital during the pandemic, where colleagues encouraged him to go to university. With the help of a scholarship program for undocumented students, he found himself at the Dominican.
Now, at 28, he is a junior specializing in international relations and diplomacy. He plans to obtain a master’s degree in foreign policy and national security.
Make an additional effort to welcome Latin students
A small Catholic university which dates back to 1922, the Dominican has history of education for children of immigrants – in previous times of northern and central origin.
Today, banners with photos of former successful Hispanic students are suspended from lampposts on the 30 -acres campus, and a group of Mariachi leads celebrations on Día de los Muertos.
Visits take place in English and Spanish, students are offered jobs on campus and staff helping whole families through health care, housing and financial crises. In the fall, the Dominicans added a satellite campus in the large American Mexican district of Pilsen, offering two -year -old associated diplomas focused on employment. Each university student Gets financial assistanceFederal data shows.
“On a daily basis, I meet a staff member or a teacher asking me what’s going on with my life and how they can support me,” said Aldo Cervantes, a major in junior affairs with a minor in accounts who hopes to enter banking or human resources.
There is a family academy for parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters and students’ cousins to learn more about university resources. As an incitement, families who come to five sessions obtain a credit so that their student takes a summer course at no cost.
“When we take a look at the Latin population who goes to college, this is not an individual choice,” said Gabe Lara, vice-president of students’ success and commitment, using the favorite term of the university for people of Latin American origin. “It’s a family choice.”
These measures and others have contributed to more than double the proportion of Hispanic students here in the past 10 years, to almost 70% of 2,570 undergraduates, according to figures provided by the university.
While other universities are starting to try to recruit Hispanic students, “they ask us all the time how we have been able to get there,” said Temple, Dominican president. “What they don’t like to hear is that these are all these things. You have to get involved. It must be more than filling seats.”
Universities and colleges that are seriously aimed at registering more Hispanic students can find them if they wish, said Sylvia Hurtado, UCLA education teacher. “You don’t have to look for very far.”
But, she added: “You need (to provide) support for each stage. We call it to be more culturally reactive, more aware of who you recruit and what could be their needs. ”
Universities are starting to do so, so slowly. The UCLA itself has not launched a Spanish language version of its admission website until 2023Hurtado underlined – “And here we are in California.”
New pressures like Dei is under fire
Even the smallest efforts to register and support Hispanic students are complicated by the withdrawal of diversity programs and financial assistance for undocumented students.
Florida in February put an end to a policy Invoking lower tuition fees in public colleges and universities to undocumented students, for example. Other states have imposed or envisage similar measures.
The Trump administration has abandoned a Biden era program to support Hispanic service institutions. And the United States Ministry of Education in a letter to colleges, interpreted the 2023 Supreme Court decision prohibiting racial preferences for admission as Prohibit “decision -based decision -makingRegardless of the form.
Although the legal basis for this action has been widely disputed, it has higher education institutions on board.
Experts say that most programs to recruit and support Hispanic students would probably not be affected by anti-dei campaigns, as they are offered to all those who need 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 of the growing Hispanic population which is part of the colleges, these institutions and the workforce are faced with much more important challenges, said Núñez and others.
“Successful students is in everyone’s interest,” she said. “The country will be left behind if it does not have all hands on the deck, including those who have not served in the past.”
To the Dominican, Genaro Balcazar directs the registration and marketing strategies as chief of the farm. He too has a pragmatic way of looking at him.
“We meet the needs of students not because of whom they are,” said Balcazar, “but because they need help.”
This story was produced by The Hechinger reportAn independent non -profit press organization has focused on inequality and innovation in education.
