Ethnic group is the fastest growing, but the least likely to enroll in college
By JEANNIE KEVER | Houston Chronicle
April 4, 2009,
The future of Texas is sitting in room 318 at Austin High School, and right now, it could go either way.
Students in the after-school program — Hispanic and from low-income families, the group least likely to enroll in college — are optimistic.
But who knows?
“I hope to go,” says Neri Gamez, 17, a high school junior who dreams of being a doctor.
Gamez has an advantage: She is in a program run by the Center for Mexican-American Studies at the University of Houston, designed to help Hispanic students enter college and, once there, earn a degree. Academic Achievers is among dozens of programs that address one of the state’s most intractable education problems.
But Hispanics, the state’s fastest-growing ethnic group, have fallen behind in some key areas, and efforts to change that remain piecemeal:
• Statewide, 68 percent of Hispanics graduate from high school within four years, 10 points below the overall rate.
• Just 42.5 percent of Hispanics who graduated from high school in 2007 enrolled in college or a technical training program the following fall, compared with 45.3 percent of black students and 57.5 percent of white students.
• Texas is “well below target” in raising the number of Hispanics in college, according to a 2008 report by the Higher Education Coordinating Board. Enrollment of both white and black students was “somewhat above target.”
And there are no consequences for schools that don’t raise Hispanic enrollment.
“The good news is, there’s a state goal,” said Paul Ruiz, co-founder and senior advisor to the Education Trust, a national group that advocates for at-risk students. “The bad news is, the institutions don’t get it. They set goals for Latino kids at about half the rate the state says we need.”
The issue is complicated by the rapid growth of the Hispanic population; about 36 percent of the Texas population is Hispanic.
“We’ve made progress,” said Raymund Paredes, higher education commissioner for Texas. “Our challenge is, we started so far behind, and the Latino population is growing so fast.”
Unless the numbers change, the state will be unable to field a well-educated work force. “The Hispanic community is key to the economic future of Texas,” Paredes said.
Enrollment edging up
The state plan, known as Closing the Gaps, began in 2000 with the goal of increasing college enrollment to 5.7 percent of the population by 2015. That would raise college-going rates to the national average.
Over the past eight years, overall enrollment has edged up to 5.3 percent from 5 percent. For Hispanics, it’s up to 3.9 percent from 3.7 percent.
More than 1.2 million Texans enrolled in a two- or four-year college or technical school last fall; state goals call for that to reach 1.6 million by 2015. The Coordinating Board’s own estimates suggest it will fall short by 300,000 students.
Gamez, a student at Austin High School, said she understands why so many of her peers don’t go on to college. “They may have to work,” she said. “And once they get a taste of the money, they may decide to skip college.”
Often, no one in their family has attended college, so they don’t know the ropes.
Gamez lives with her mother and 19-year-old brother, both of whom work at a tire store. Her father graduated from college in Mexico and owned a tire shop in Houston but now is in prison, she said. “He didn’t really get to apply his skills.”
She intends to be different.
Patchwork efforts
Paredes and other higher education officials point to the successes.
Hispanic enrollment has grown faster than that of other racial or ethnic groups, and is up 50 percent over the past five years. Two-thirds of the growth was at community or technical colleges, rather than a four-year school.
But the population has grown almost as quickly, wiping out much of the gains.
Paredes notes that improving college-going rates has to start in high school or even sooner, and he has pushed for more stringent high school graduation requirements to better prepare students for college. Those took effect in 2008.
The state has established counseling centers in 250 Texas middle and high schools to improve college counseling. Paredes also has argued, with mixed success, for more financial aid.
“Most Latino students come from poor families, and they’ll need aid to go to college,” he said.
Success is relative.
The University of Texas system touts its diversity, noting that in 2008, Hispanic enrollment was about equal to that of white students, and several campuses have been designated as among the nation’s top in awarding degrees to Hispanics. But most Hispanic enrollment is concentrated at the system’s border schools, including UT-Pan American (86 percent), UT-Brownsville (91 percent) and UT-El Paso (75 percent).
At UT-Austin, 16 percent of students are Hispanic; at UT-Dallas, it’s 9 percent.
The flagship campus could do better, Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa acknowledged. “It does require a real outreach effort,” he said. “It doesn’t happen automatically.”
Which is precisely Ruiz’s point.
Ruiz, who lives in San Antonio, suggests the state should set goals for each institution, with top administrators held accountable for meeting them.
Janet Beinke, director of planning at the coordinating board, said it’s not so easy to impose mandates. “What are you going to do? Take the money away?” she asked. “You have to use carrots.”
But Ruiz disagrees.
“To close the Hispanic gap, institutions have to do things dramatically differently,” he said.
Most rely upon a patchwork of efforts.
The University of Houston, for example, sends recruiters to local high schools and college fairs, said Jeff Fuller, director of student recruitment. Its major outreach comes through the Center for Mexican-American Studies, which began its first program at Jackson Middle School more than 20 years ago.
Progress has been slow.
Multiple stumbling blocks
About 20 percent of UH students are Hispanic, up only slightly over the last five years. (About 40 percent of Harris County residents are Hispanic.) But that was still enough to earn a place among the top 20 colleges and universities awarding degrees to Hispanic students, according to The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education magazine.
The numbers are slightly higher at the University of Houston-Downtown, which has its own outreach programs. About 36 percent of students there are Hispanic.
Rebeca Trevino, who manages the Center for Mexican-American Studies’ Academic Achievers program, said several factors hold Hispanic students back, including money and a lack of role models.
Language, high school preparation and immigration issues all can be stumbling blocks, as well.
“Most of our students are the first in their family to go to college,” Trevino said. “They need people they can relate to.”
A new tradition
Irene Avellaneda, 18, found that in her brother, Hector.
But when Hector Avellaneda, now 22, walked onto the Texas A&M campus in 2004, he had to forge his own path.
The eldest of three children, he was the first in his family to finish high school. College was foreign territory.
“The first semester and first year were kind of rough,” he said.
His GPA dipped to 2.75 that first semester — not terrible, but below the 3.0 his scholarships required — and he was placed on probation.
But he turned that around and will graduate in May, just as Irene finishes her first year at UH-Downtown.
“Hector was a big inspiration,” his sister said. “The younger siblings are always going to look up to the older.”
That now goes double for their youngest sibling, 14-year-old Moses.
WHY COLLEGE?
What are the benefits of a college education?
• More wealth: The National Center for Education Statistics says college graduates earn $1.2 million more during their lifetimes than non-graduates.
Less poverty: Unless more people earn a college degree, the Texas State Data Center warns that average household incomes will drop $3,000 by 2030.
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