(NAME-MCE) Hispanics travel rough road to higher education

[Anselmo Villanueva]

Hispanics travel rough road to higher education

Ethnic group is the fastest growing, but the least likely to enroll in
college

By JEANNIE KEVER  Houston Chronicle

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April 5, 2009, 12:12PM
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 Nathan Lindstrom For the Chronicle

Eva Briones, left, and Alice Valdez are sophomores at the University of
Houston. Seeing others in her family struggle with low-wage jobs has
inspired Briones. “I didn’t want to do that,” she said.

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.
   * RELATED REPORT *
 * Meet 3 young Latinos determined to beat odds *
<http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6359210.html>

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.

*jeannie.kever at chron.com *