Will Latino Grads Grow As Online University Access Expands?

The University of Texas recently launched a new program, Finish@UT, with the goal of creating better access to classes and the attainment of degrees for non-traditional students, who may be juggling work or children, or simply cannot access the campus. Here’s part of the statement from the system:

Students can earn a bachelor of science in university studies at The University of Texas at Arlington, a bachelor of multidisciplinary studies through The University of Texas at El Paso or a bachelor of arts in humanities through The University of Texas of the Permian Basin. The program allows students to combine classes from all three institutions to earn accredited four-year bachelor degrees.

Three students may also be eligible for $20,000 scholarships awarded per person toward tuition. None of this might mean much to Latinos for a few different reasons, though. Firstly, Hispanics still have massive problems graduating from high school. Numbers from the United States Dept of Education in 2011 show us that, even in 2009, 17.6% of Latinos dropped out of school. Trying to get people into college is a noble task, but we have to work on bringing drop out numbers down first.

However, this program is not aimed at the 17 year-old high school graduate. Even then, getting Latinos into that program is going to be a lot more difficult, due to the same data mentioned before. Back in 2003, one in four Latinos dropped out of high school.

These folks would be of the right age to get into this program, but with one in four dropping out of high school across the country, we’re still left with a lot of uneducated Latinos. These would-be Latino students may be of age for this program, but will be unable to benefit from this. Add in that Texas has a lot more Latinos than other states, and you’ve got a lot of older people who will be unable to get to college. UT’s program is a good program, I’m sure. It’ll allow people who are unable to traditionally go to college to obtain their bachelor’s degree.

However, expecting it to help Latinos is not necessarily a foregone conclusion. We need to get our GEDs and place a higher emphasis on education within our community and culture so that we can actually take advantage of these academic opportunities as they become available.