Latino Enrollment Increases, Mostly 2-Year Degree Programs

White student enrollment is dropping, but a spike in enrollment by Latinos was recently reported by the Pew Hispanic Center. According to his recent report, college-age Latinos accounted for 1.8 million students enrolled at two- or four-year colleges in 2010.

The two primary factors for increased college enrollment are increased Latino population growth, combined with the burgeoning population of Latino high school students eligible for postsecondary degree programs. In 2010, the Latino high school completion rate reached nearly 73%, which is the highest level on record, and the rate of high school graduates enrolling into college rose to 44%.

Despite increased high school completion rates and higher enrollment rates, only 1 out of 3 Latino 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States is attending some form of college. Currently within the same age group, the college enrollment rate for every other racial group is higher:

• Asian 62%
• White 43%
• Black 38%
• Latinos 32%

It must be noted that the rise in Latino enrollment is based off of a disproportionate number of students enrolled in two-year colleges. Of all young Latinos who were attending college last October, some 46% were at a two-year college while 54% were at a four-year college.

Nationally, Latinos comprise 22% of two-year students but only 12% of four-year students.

Although college-age Latinos have narrowed the enrollment gap in this last decade, their collective degree completion rate is lower than every other racial group in the country. Last year, only 13% of Latino 25- to 29-year-olds had completed at least a bachelor’s degree in contrast to more than half (53%) of non-Hispanic Asian young adults, nearly 39% of white young adults and approximately 19% of non-Hispanic Black young adults.

However, among nativeborn Latino 25- to 29-year-olds, 20% had completed a bachelor’s degree. This is a good start, but not nearly the kind of energy we need in order to ensure that Latinos not only complete their undergraduate degrees in larger numbers, but go onto graduate school in order to become influential in the upper tiers of our society.