Hispanic college students are only half as likely as white students to complete a bachelor's degree, according to a report released in June by the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research institution in Washington, D.C.
The study analyzed data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey, which followed 25,000 students of all ethnicities over 12 years from eighth-grade through the age of 26. For both Hispanics and whites, 82 percent of those who finished high school enrolled in college. But only 23 percent of Hispanic students went on to complete bachelor's degrees, compared to 47 percent of white students.
"Suppose you take equally prepared kids and put them on the same kinds of campuses, still Latinos are trailing whites," said Richard Fry, the report's author.
Hispanic students at the University fare better than the national average, according to figures compiled by the Office of Institutional Research. An OIR report shows that about 60 percent of Hispanic students admitted in the mid-1990s graduated within six years - nearly two-and-a-half times the nationwide figure for the students in the Pew study. However, they still lagged behind white students by about 13 percentage points.
There is no single reason why Hispanics are less likely to graduate, Fry said, but a number of social and economic factors combine to make it more difficult for them to finish.
"A lot of issues have to do with money and not having that immediate plan after college," said Stephen Torres, a Mexican American studies senior and former student director at the Multicultural Information Center. "Most of us don't grow up in environments where there are a lot of college-educated role models. Your parents are facing problems that are different from issues faced by a lot of other people sending their kids to college. There are financial issues. A lot of times, children are needed to work to provide part of the family's income."
The type of college students choose also makes a big difference, Fry said. Hispanics tend to choose community colleges and state schools that have less rigorous admission standards, he said, but more selective institutions, such as elite universities and small private colleges, have much higher graduation rates for all ethnic groups. That's because they provide a different kind of learning environment, Fry said.
"Large public universities, some of these things they can't replicate," he said. "You need to ask yourself if you're a large urban university, 'How could I build small communities within a larger environment?' And that's a challenge, but that's what they need to be doing."
Minority students face obstacles to success not experienced by white students, Fry said. Simply being a minority creates a social environment where it can be more difficult to find friends or join study groups, he added.
The University had 6,546 Hispanic students enrolled last year, about 13 percent of the student body, according to the OIR's 2003-04 Statistical Handbook. The number has been increasing since 1999. Overall, 32 percent of Texans are Hispanic, according to 2000 census data.
The Latino Leadership Council, formerly known as the Hispanic Affairs Agency, coordinates Latino groups on campus, Gonzalez said. The group will sponsor its second annual Latino leadership retreat in October, which will feature Latino leaders from all over the country. The goal, Gonzales said, is to bring Latino students together and help them to succeed.
"A lot of it has to do with providing students with resources," Torres said. Sometimes those would be on-campus resources, sometimes they would be student organizations to help students fight the daily battles of college life. It's somebody to say, things aren't always going to be great, but we're going to help you with whatever comes up."
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