How to Turn “Invisible” Latinos into College Grads

It kinda sounds like a cheesy parlor trick – if only it were that easy.

There’s nothing new in the the idea. We’ve been consistently talking about the need to get more Latinos into college, and once there to keep them there until they graduate. It’s a long, on-going conversation that’s short on answers. If we had figured it out we wouldn’t still be taking about it.

The conversation was taken up in earnest, again, in San Antonio. A national conference called Prepárate has gathered more than 500 educators from across the nation to discuss what needs to be done and to offer, as the College Board has, a lofty goal: 55 percent of Americans with college degrees by 2025.

The huge gap in that aim: only 20 percent of Latino adults hold college degrees.

Without addressing Latino college graduation rates the College Board goal is impossible.

National Public Radio Correspondent Claudio Sanchez was a keynote speaker at the event. He said, according to the San Antonio Express-News, that the struggle is great.

In today’s schools, Latinos are more segregated than blacks before integration, and often suffer the “problem of invisibility,” Sanchez said.

The situation is worsened by budget cuts, which Sanchez believes will bring massive layoffs and teacher strikes as early as this fall. Financial aid — the lifeline to college for many Latinos — is on shaky ground, as are college programs that give extra support to Latino students who show up ill-prepared for the rigor of college work.

Since 1975 college completion rates for Latinos have improved only 2 percent.

The truth is that this is not only about Latinos and how many of them go to college and get degrees. Given the surge of the Latino population across the country, this is about the America’s overall competitiveness, workforce preparation and economic stability. What Latinos in the US know, and hopefully conferences like the one in San Antonio will serve to tell the rest of the country, is that the rehashed efforts aren’t w0rking – something new and radically different needs to happen inside the classrooms in order to make a difference and reach our goals.

Follow Victor Landa on Twitter: @vlanda