Texas’ Latino Population Growth Absent On University Campuses

Texas has grown by leaps and bounds and it’s almost wholly due to Latino population growth. What this means for the state, or for the politicos that run it, is that there will be more seats, more federal funding, more power, more representation, more of more.

But what about the Latinos that made that growth happen? Often it’s far too easy to be ignored if you’re not already in power, and it looks like that may already be the case in one of the states large public universities.

The University of Texas at San Antonio has been changing rapidly in the past few years to become a Tier 1 school, but what’s been left in the dust for the largely Latino student body in a largely Latino town is representation at other levels. Namely, while Latinos make up 44% of the student body, they only make up 18% of the faculty.

Think about that for a moment: Latino students make up almost half of the student population but less than a fifth of the faculty there are Latino. Which means that the students are likely learning from people who don’t understand their culture or history. Given that the Latino populations in Texas and San Antonio have been growing steadily for the past 10 years, these UTSA stats mean either the educational system has excluded Latinos or that the faculty are being hired from outside of the students’ communities.

If we look at the rest of the numbers, not only do we see that whites are totally overrepresented as faculty (65%, compared to a 33% student population), but Asians are overrepresented (11% faculty compared to 5% students) while African-Americans are also dismally represented 3% compared to an 8% student body). So, even though Texas and San Antonio are the harbingers of the big, coming Latino majority, if you look at how things are going right now, you’d never know.

Thanks to Lizette for the tip!

Follow Sara Inés Calderón on Twitter @SaraChicaD