Four Texas colleges and universities are among the first in the nation honored for their efforts to help more Latinos earn degrees.
Despite a significant growth in enrollment nationwide, barely 55 percent of Latinos end up earning a bachelor's degree within six years, according to the most recent federal data. In Texas, that graduation rate is only 48 percent.
So the nonprofit Excelencia in Education developed a voluntary certification to recognize those schools that have shown consistent success for Latinos through intentional efforts, said Deborah Santiago, the group's chief executive officer.
On Thursday, nine schools received the first Seal of Excelencia designation, including the University of Texas at El Paso, South Texas College, El Paso Community College and the Austin Community College District. Texas had seven schools among the 20 finalists, including the University of Texas-Arlington.
The U.S. Department of Education classifies colleges and universities as a Hispanic-Serving Institution when at least a quarter of their undergraduates are Latinos. Such a designation opens up access to various pools of grant funding that can help all students on their campuses.
But simply meeting an enrollment threshold does little to tell families how well a school is serving students, Santiago has said.So the nonprofit, which focuses on Latinos in higher education, developed the certification that requires schools to complete an extensive review ranging from how well retention rates improve to how much financial support is available to what initiatives are in place to support Latino student success.
At the Thursday announcement in Washington, D.C., which was broadcast online, UTEP officials praised retiring UTEP president Diana Natalicio for the 30-year journey she's taken the university on to increase access so that the campus better reflects its border community.
In a recent interview with The Dallas Morning News, Natalicio said she was shocked by how underrepresented Latino students were when she took over the school 31 years ago. Anglo students were the majority students then.
"And the disparity was not explainable by anything except opportunity shortage of students of Hispanic background, or Latino background," she said. Now about 85 percent of students are Hispanic, closely mirroring the city.
Efforts there have included an open-enrollment policy where no student who wants to enroll is turned away and offering small, interest-free loans to students who face unexpected dilemmas, such as car trouble, that could prevent them from continuing classes.
UT-Arlington's Maria Martinez-Cosio, associate vice provost for faculty affairs, was in Washington, D.C., for the announcements. And while disappointed that her school didn't get recognized this year, she said the intense review process helped local officials better see what's working and what areas need improvement.
For example, the school has increased efforts to recruit in largely Latino communities with initiatives like Go Centers located at high schools where university staff help students apply for college and financial aid.
As a Hispanic-Serving Institution, the university recently received a $2.6 million grant that UT-Arlington is using to offer better support to transfer students through targeted tutoring and mentoring.
"The big takeaway for me was that have all these pieces that we're pulling together," Martinez-Cosio said. "We are focused and engaged in looking at this data and how we're serving Latino students. But we need to do more of that more broadly (across campus) so that everyone understands what our impact is and so we can offer a better menu of services to our students."
Schools earning the Seal of Excelencia
Arizona State University
Austin Community College District California State University Channel Islands El Paso Community College Florida International University Grand Valley State University South Texas College University of Arizona University of Texas at El Paso