Latino student success in higher education is not where it needs to be, according to findings from Latino student success organization Excelencia in Education.
Deborah A. Santiago
"Our mission is to accelerate Latino student success in higher education,” said Dr. Deborah Santiago, lead analysis researcher and CEO of Excelencia CEO. "One of the challenges we face, in looking at this data, is that acceleration is not happening for Latino student success in a way that we need to."
Degree completion gaps had been closing up until about 2019, Santiago said. But according to the analysis, gaps between Latino and white students have grown over the last four years. At two-year institutions, the gap increased from -2% to -5%, while four-year schools saw a smaller but still present gap widening from -12% to -13%.
And it’s not that graduation rates have changed much for Latino students in the last few years – 33% for two-year and 51-52% for four-year. It’s that the rate at which white students were graduating had grown, Santiago said, adding that such growth was not a negative thing.
"This is not closing the gap by having others do worse,” Santiago said. “It's about making sure that while everybody is increasing, that Latinos are accelerating so we can really close gaps."
At a briefing on Tuesday, Excelencia leaders discussed degree attainment, enrollment and projected plans for the next decade.
"Latino college completion is of great importance on an ongoing basis in higher education and to our country, as it relates to a future workforce and civic leadership," said Sarita Brown, president of Excelencia.
