Posts Tagged: college degrees
Hispanics are more optimistic about paying for college
According to a new Gallup-Lumina Foundation study, 51 percent of Hispanics think “education beyond high school is affordable to anyone in this country who needs it.”
Just 19 percent of blacks and 17 percent of whites feel the same.
So why are Hispanics way more optimistic than their white and black peers about the affordability of postsecondary education?
“This is a population of folks who are very hungry for education and see it as a pathway to a better life,” Brandon Busteed, the Gallup lead on the study and executive director of Gallup Education, told Fusion.
One potential theory Busteed offers is that there's a large immigrant population in the Hispanic community and first-generation immigrants see education as the only pathway to a good job.
Another is that data indicates adults without a postsecondary credential are more likely to think college graduates are well-prepared for the workforce than those who hold a credential, and since Hispanic adults are less likely to hold a credential than their white peers, they may have more optimism about college.
Still, whites, on average, have more than nine times the wealth of Hispanics, so it wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that they would have a more difficult time affording college. Yet Hispanic students are less likely to take out student loans and more likely to work, according to the Institute for Higher Education Policy. Latino students are also more likely to attend community colleges, which often have relatively low tuition, close to home, which allows students to work and cut out room and board costs.
The makeup of colleges is changing as more young Hispanics pursue higher education.
Between 1976 and 2011, the percentage of college students who identified as Hispanic rose from 4 percent to 14 percent, according to National Center for Education Statistics data. In 2012, seven out of 10 Latino high school graduates enrolled in college, according to the Pew Research Center, which was higher than the enrollment rate for students identifying as white or black.
The survey found that most Americans think colleges need to do more to prepare students for success in the working world, and that they need to do more to serve an increasingly diverse array of students. Virtually all adults in the United States think high schoolers need to go on to college or technical school to be successful in today's economy.
“We as country have got to get behind this Hispanic population that is coming to college with very high expectations for it and valuing it,” Busteed said, “and make sure we're supporting them in the right ways.”
Source: Originally published on Fusion.net asHispanics are way more optimistic about paying for college than everyone else, by Emily DeRuy, April 17, 2015.
Hispanics gain at California colleges
Latinos account for 28.8% of the 61,120 Californians admitted for this fall's freshman class at the UC system's nine undergraduate campuses, up from 27.6% last year and topping the 26.8% share of whites, preliminary data show.
Both trail the 36.2% share for Asians, the largest freshman group for the past few years. Blacks represented 4.2% of those admitted, the same as in 2013.
Hispanics represent California's largest ethnic group. According to the California Department of Finance, among 15- to 19-year-olds in California, 49.4% are Hispanic, 29.2% are white, 10.9% are Asian and 6% are black.
"The freshmen admitted reflect the changing demographics and diversity of the state," said Dianne Klein, spokeswoman for the UC system.
Los Angeles resident Wessly Hernandez, 17, who plans to study civil engineering, was admitted to UC San Diego, Davis and Irvine, as well as the University of Southern California and Carnegie Mellon University. "My parents didn't make it to high school so I feel a lot of satisfaction, because this accomplishment is for them as well as for me," said the son of a cleaning lady and mechanic, both Latino.
California law prohibits public universities from considering race or ethnicity in admissions decisions. But Ms. Klein said the UC system has been striving to attract students from underperforming high schools, which typically have a concentration of under-represented minority and low-income students.
About 43% of those admitted for the fall identified themselves as the first to attend college in their families. "Too often in minority communities there was this perception of the vaunted University of California system as too expensive and out of reach," she said.
"It's great that Latinos are being more represented in the UC system, since, after all, they are largest group in California," said Dowell Myers, a California demographer at USC, a private institution. "It would be really useful to have more representation of African- Americans."
Meantime, the UC system, like many others, attracted more nonresidents to help bolster its budget. The share of students the UC system admitted from other states climbed 9% from last year, while the number from other countries rose 15%, according to university figures.
The system, which includes the prestigious Berkeley and University of California, Los Angeles campuses, estimates 13% of undergraduates this coming academic year will be non-Californians, up from 12% this year and about 5% four years ago. Tuition for nonresidents is about $35,000 compared with $13,000 for residents. "The revenue they bring is substantial and subsidizes the education of Californians," Ms. Klein said.
Some other big state universities have even greater out-of-state populations, including the University of Michigan, University of Alabama and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Source: Published originally on The Wall Street Journal as Hispanics Gain at California Colleges by Miriam Jordan, April 20, 2014.
More Latinos taking AP courses, but numbers are still low
“For Hispanic families, participating in AP expands not only academic and college opportunities, but just as importantly, it connects them to financial benefits that can come with earning AP credit,” said James Montoya, vice president of higher education at the College Board.
In California, Florida and Texas, one out of every three students successfully completing an AP course is Latino. In Arizona it is 1 in 4 and in New York, it is 1 in 10. Overall, the report found too few Latinos participate in AP classes. Only 3 in 10 Latino high school graduates with the potential to take an AP math class ended up taking an AP math exam. This is a missed opportunity; not only does it save students money and credits in college, but data shows that students who get a good score on an AP math exam are more likely to earn degrees in engineering and other sciences.
Among the class of 2012, over 300,000 high school students identified through their PSAT scores as having the potential to take AP classes did not take them, and many were minorities. One of the reasons there are fewer qualified Latino students taking AP courses is that these classes are less available in schools with high numbers of low-income or underserved minority students. While there has been some progress in the past – in 2003, 11.5 percent of AP Exam takers were low-income – the number went up to 26.6 percent in 2012.
Source: Originally published on NBC Latino as More Latinos taking AP courses, but numbers are still low by Sandra Lilley, February 20, 2013.
More Latinos obtain doctorates
And now a recent study by the University of California, Berkeley shows that the number of Latinos holding a doctorate degree rose 161 percent from 1990 to 2010, outpacing the non-Hispanic rate by almost double.
While white students seeking Ph.D.s at Berkeley outnumber Hispanics almost 7 to 1, their numbers are going in opposite directions. There were 385 Latino students pursuing doctoral degrees in the fall of 2011, a 46 percent increase in 20 years, according to Berkeley data. White doctoral students fell 25 percent to 2,529 in the same period.
Second-generation Hispanic-Americans are more likely than their immigrant parents to have college degrees, higher-paying jobs, and be homeowners, according to a 2010 report by the Center for American Progress.
Latino students credit teachers and counselors with steering them toward higher education by helping them find fellowships and scholarships.
Source: Fox News Latino, Latinos with Doctorates on the Rise, July 25, 2012, and Bloomberg, Hispanic Ph.D.s Jump as Fastest-Growing Minority Gains, July 23, 2012.