A push for Latinos to pursue education
Latinos are the fastest-growing part of the U.S. population. But Latino students are the least likely to get college degrees, so they're getting special attention. Emily Hanford reports.
Hispanic College Fund President Idalia Fernandez and her colleague George Cushman look through scholarship applications. (Anne Guarnera)
More on Education
Links
- More Latinos filling community colleges
- American RadioWorks: "Rising by Degrees"
A documentary on Latino students working toward college degrees -- and why it's so hard for them to get what they want. - Hispanic College Fund
- Census Bureau statistics on educational attainment
Hispanic College Fund President Idalia Fernandez and her colleague George Cushman at the HCF offices in Washington, D.C.
TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: A report out from the Southern Education Foundation out today says the South is the first part of the country where more than half the children in public schools are minorities. That is happening in part because more Latinos and their larger families are moving in. Latinos are the fastest-growing part of the U.S. population.
And as the United States tries to keep up with other countries in getting students into, and graduated from college, Latinos are getting special attention. Because they're the least likely to get college degrees. From American RadioWorks, Emily Hanford reports.
EMILY HANFORD: George Cushman spent most of his career in the corporate world. Then came 9/11 and his position was eliminated. Searching around for something new, he ended up taking a job at the Hispanic College Fund. And it opened his eyes to a huge problem about to hit the nation as baby boomers like him retire.
GEORGE Cushman: The number of white professionals leaving the workforce is so large. And the largest population to replace them are Latinos. And they're getting degrees at a third the rate.
The numbers really are daunting. The Census Bureau predicts that by the year 2050, nearly one in three U.S. residents will be Hispanic. And right now, only 13 percent of Latinos get bachelor's degrees. Boosting that rate is the goal of the Hispanic College Fund. At first the Fund focused on helping students pay for college. But that wasn't enough. Too many kids were dropping out of high school. So the fund started a program for students as young as 9th grade.
IDALIA Fernandez: We created the Hispanic Youth Symposium to get students to believe that they can go to college.
Idalia Fernandez is president of the Hispanic College Fund. The fund sponsors five of these symposia each year. This one's at Towson University in Maryland.
Students come to campus for four days of motivational speeches like this and to learn practical things like how to fill out financial aid forms. They live in the dorms, eat in the dining hall, get a feel for what college is like. It's the first time many of them have ever been on a college campus.
GERMAN OSORIO: First I was like, ahh, I might go to college. Now I'm like positive. I'm like got to go to college, I'm going to college.
This is German Osorio. He's in 10th grade. A teacher told him about this program.
Osorio: I want to have a professional job. Not like my family, like gardeners, fast food restaurants, construction workers. I want to do something different.
German's parents are from El Salvador. They didn't get much education. He says they'd like him to go to college, but they don't know anything about how to help him get there. This is where guidance counselors should come in, but Idalia Fernandez says many Latinos go to poor schools where they don't get good counseling or worse, they confront counselors who tell them they're not cut out for college. So students give up.
Fernandez: A lot of the times they self select out. Why should I apply? Why should I take the SATs?
Fernandez says students and parents sometimes need a little convincing that college is worth the time and money. So when she and her colleagues started the Youth Symposium they created charts showing how much more money people make with a college degree. But that pitch fell kind of flat.
George Cushman explains.
GEORGE Cushman: We looked at the students, and they were looking at each other saying how do I explain this to my parents? My house isn't good enough, the car isn't good enough, they're working two jobs, each of them, they're killing themselves, and it isn't good enough?
So instead of emphasizing money, Fernandez says they tell students that a college degree is one way they can improve their communities.
Fernandez: You know, if you go to a hospital, and you saw that a family member didn't get the health care they needed because someone didn't understand their language then you're the one that has to become the health care provider who's bilingual and is going to serve the Latino community.
So far the appeal seems to be working. The Hispanic College Fund received more than 38,000 applications last year for 600 scholarships. Those numbers seem to say two things. Young Latinos who see college as a possibility are lining up for the opportunity. But they need more help paying for it.
I'm Emily Hanford for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Orlando, FL, 01/11/2010
I think the way this story is treated makes no justice to the quallity of latin americans that have been deserting their countries because of a lack of opportunities or a stable government.
In my family I can count 4 engineers and one prospect (myself) degrees which few Americans pursue. All of us know more than one language, 2 of them speak three and I speak 5. This may not be the general case for most Latin american migrating families and yet here I sit being not able to afford further scholar pursuits or workplace opportunities and strugling to make ends meet a cause de lawyer-immigration dept. Bureaucracy. Please support the dream act, there is much talent that is being left unused that would eventually lead to a durable culture assimilation.
Instead of statistic reviews, get to meet that person that cleans after you in the airports and hotels, parks your cars carries your luggage and all those low paying yet dignifying jobs and you may be surprised.
01/08/2010
Me as “Latino” I am proud to ear that somebody is trying to take away ours kids from the vicious hands of the reggaeton music, tight pants, extreme revealing clothes, excessive relevance given to celebrities and unnecessary identification with another minorities; yes is the true we are a minority but the faster growing one (not a minimal minority) therefore we should be responsible of our future.
We are a minority yes but not all the minorities neither have the same origins nor goals; we do not have to act as Afro-Americans or Asians we shall behave as Americans that happen to have roots south of the border (like the English settlers had with Great Britain) and be responsible for us and do not wait for the welfare to kick in. Observe how the other minorities treat their own when these realize that outside of the bubble there is more much more…
Please forget about the celebrities, do not waste your money on them better use it on education ANY KIND OF EDUCATION!!!
WE ARE ON AMERICA WE SHALL SPEAK ENGLISH! (and learn another languages Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, etc.).
KEEP ON MIND THAT THE FACT THAT WE ARE MINORITY DOES NOT MEAN THE WE ARE LESS THAT THE OTHERS SOCIAL GROUPS SPECIALLY ANOTHER MINORITIES
Thanks in advance to all of those that help the young AMERICANS to forge a better future…
God Bless America…
01/08/2010
"Latinos are the least likely to get college degrees...Only 13% of Latinos get bachelors degrees."
This is a good program, and an important one. But we need to do much more than motivational speeches at college campuses.
"Many Latinos go to poor schools" that don't help their students get to college. In addition to educating parents and students on the importance of college, we need to do more to ensure that these students can attend high quality primary and secondary schools where college preparedness and college attendance is the norm.
It is notable that Latinos that attend Catholic schools are 42% more likely to graduate from high school and 2.5 times more likely to graduate from college. Yet only 3% of Latino children attend Catholic schools, a significant under-representation that is NOT only explained by income levels.
The University of Notre Dame recently completed a year long task force and released a report in Dec. 2009 that looked at why so few Latinos send their children to Catholic schools despite the considerable advantages. Emerging from this task force and final report, Notre Dame has launched a national campaign to enroll 1 Million Latino children in Catholic schools in the next 10 years, bringing the "Catholic School Advantage" to many more Hispanic children and families.
This is one, of many, of the types of interventions that we need to better serve the growing American Latino population and advance the common good of our country.
See here for more information about the Notre Dame "Catholic School Advantage Campaign" http://catholicschooladvantage.nd.edu/
From Dallas, 01/07/2010
It is extremely frustrating to hear stories like this as a Mexican- American, who was brought to the U.S. as a child illegally. Your story does not take into account stories of students like myself, who through hard work acquired a bachelors degree, yet cannot work in our qualified fields due to our immigration status. On darker days, I often asked myself where my education was truly going to lead. Currently, it is as a low paid worker feeding on the hopes that one day Americans can realize that it is not fair to punish children brought here by their parents.
From Athens, GA, 01/07/2010
I have been a teacher most of my life, almost a decade of that at the University of Georgia College of Education. I was one of the founders of the Center for Educational Technology, we proposed "Distance Education" before the microcomputer was introduced, back in 1984... Higher education for all our citizens should be the top National priority in my opinion.
The notion that promoting the idea of "having someone bilingual" as a reason to attend college is a pretty weak reason; perhaps even misguided.
The failure to assimilate, learn English and the mores of American life and culture, are one of the main things holding back "Latino" immigrants.
To suggest that assimilation is unimportant supports the idea, openly declared by some "immigrant advocates" of what amounts to a cultural invasion of America. This is a formula for strife, not unity. Americans want to welcome those who love America; but they will always resist and reject those who think America is not as good as where they came from. This is not just patriotic, it's human nature.
If folks are moving to the US to try and turn it into their homeland, they are here for the wrong reason and should stay at home.
If you want to join us in our great experiment in seeking freedom and equality, you are welcome; but if your intent is to undermine, resist, and reject the greatest Nation built so far; perhaps you need to re-think your motives and goals.
College is the key to a better life for those who want to BECOME Americans and make America a better country. Those who want to make America a bi-lingual, "Balkanized", polyglot amalgam - forsaking the American culture built up over the past 300+ years are not building up, they are tearing down.
Every young person in America should strive for a college education, regardless their origin or heritage - to be better Americans and make America a better place for ALL. Anything less is selling our youth short, and worse, selling America short.
We should be giving every young person in America tuition, books, room and board so long as they make good grades, and expecting them to return the gift with patriotic love of their country.
Assimilation is the first step.
01/07/2010
As a college professor at a California community college in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area, I have been sounding the alarm since the Bureau of Census and the June 2006 study from Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at USC have been releasing data on this phenomenon.
I serve a student population, half Hispanic and half black, from feeder high schools from the surrounding area and I concur many students are not ready for college. They lack English writing skills, critical thinking, and college level reading proficiency. Students are not taught to think or question. They are taught to simply pass the high school exit exam.
Other barriers for Latino students graduating from college are: a) because of their immigration status, some have the false notion that financial aid is available only for U.S. citizens; b) in 2007, approximately 24% of Hispanic households were considered poor with median annual incomes under $21,148. They are more prone to drop out of school to help support the family; c) better school counseling and support services are needed like the Puente Program which bridge the college experience with the junior and senior high school years of students and their parents. Many are first generation bound for college and they don't know how to navigate though the maze; d) failure to pass the Dream Act, which would have allowed non-resident students with high school diplomas and above average GPAs to enter college with in-state tuition fees. Needed legislation would enable this nation to benefit from a human resource already capitalized with K-12 education spending. Educating youth already in the U.S. and likely to remain in the country ensures a more capital intensive labor pool in the future.
Do we want a third of the U.S. population to be unprepared for the jobs of the tomorrow?
Current economic stimulus and employment generating policies focus on "green jobs" and other high-tech industries. Our aging Baby Boomers will raise the demand for health care professionals. Let's prepare the next generation of workers who will fund our social security, will pay the taxes to reduce our fiscal deficit, and care for our elderly.
Apparently many policy makers skipped out on their history classes which have repeatedly taught us that our economy has depended on foreign laborers, H-1 visa workers, and the Brain Drain policies since the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. According to a Feb. 11, 2008 study from the Pew Research Center, the foreign born population is the U.S. by 2050 will account for 19% of the total.
Something else to consider after California Governor's State of the State address is the recent awakening to the fact that 11% of the state's budget is devoted to the correctional system while only 7.5% of fiscal spending goes to higher education.
Does society want to invest in the growing Latino population in our crowded jails or in our crowded classrooms?
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Correctional survey, between 1990 and 2008, the number of Hispanic jail inmates increased at a faster average annual rate of growth (4.5%) than white (3.8%) and black inmates (3.3%). In 2008, a one-day count of the number of jailed inmates revealed there were 128,550 Latinos, compared to 308,000 Blacks and 333,300 non-Hispanic Whites.
From Milwaukee, WI, 01/07/2010
Part of this issue is Latin children who are in the U.S. illegally, brought here by their parents, but who have lived most of their lives here. They are unwilling and unlikely to return to countries they don't know, yet they can receive no public financial aid to attend college. A simple mechanism is needed to give them a legal status, allow them to attend school and move them toward citizenship.
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