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Transitioning Latino Students to College: Altering the Path of a Rapidly Expanding Underclass
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Frances Contreras |
Patricia Gándara |
By Frances Contreras and Patricia Gándara
The transition to college for Latino students represents a pivotal step toward expanding opportunities and life options. The act of enrolling in college forges a path toward greater economic mobility and the ability to contribute to sustainable families and communities. While entering college does not guarantee graduating from college, this critical juncture represents a level of success that many Latinos do not experience, as they drop off as early as sixth grade. We have yet to resolve the fact that close to half of all Latino students fall through the cracks before graduating. Increasing the number of Latinos that transition successfully to college is therefore closely intertwined with addressing the high school dropout crisis.
A mere 49.9 percent of Latino males and 59.9 percent of Latinas graduated high school with their class in 2006, for an overall Latino average graduation rate of 55 percent. That same year, 73 percent of white males and 78.4 percent of white females graduated high school. And out of the 55 percent of Latinos that graduated from high school, only 64 percent transitioned to higher education, and only 42 percent will actually earn their college degrees. This story is one that has been told across generations for Latino students — one that represents a loss of opportunity and a limited investment in human capital, and accounts for the limited generational progress that the Latino community has experienced in the United States. This has contributed to a growing Latino block within the working poor. A recent study by Andrew Sum and his colleagues found Latino dropouts were the most likely to be employed (53 percent) compared to their peers. However, these jobs are in low-skilled, low-wage sectors that do not provide health benefits or security, and contribute to limited job mobility. Allowing the expansion of a Latino underclass has implications for the entire nation, which will rely on the youthful Latino workforce to support the national economic infrastructure.
While we lose far too many students in general before they complete high school, for Latinos, these data have the potential to be devastating for the entire country because of the rapidly changing face of children in America’s schools. By 2025, Latino students will constitute 25 percent of the K–12 population, and well over 30 percent of the total United States population by 2050. The school-age population is more diverse than ever, and this trend means that schools must adapt and better address the needs of multicultural students, and acknowledge the strengths that come with bilingualism, multiculturalism and immigrant optimism. Only by investing in these students will more enter and complete college, ready for the global competition that exists in the labor market of today and tomorrow. This is essential for creating a larger pool of high achievers — students who do well in school and successfully enter the mainstream of society.
In The Latino Education Crisis (Harvard University Press, 2009), we provide seven policy recommendations to address the crisis in Latino student success in the education pipeline. These recommendations are intended to begin a course of action that directly addresses the needs of Latino students in the education system. One policy recommendation that is highly relevant to the discussion presented here regards dropout prevention and college access programs that support the connection between home and school. Connecting schools to students’ communities, acknowledging students’ assets such as knowledge of another language and culture, exposing them early to college-going practices and access programs, and establishing real partnerships between the school infrastructure and the home provides for a comprehensive approach to educating Latino students and their families on the critical importance of graduating from high school and preparing for college.
The United States can no longer afford to ignore the needs of Latino students in the education system; to do so puts the whole society at risk. From the dismissal of the language resources that many of these students possess to the lack of qualified professionals to meet their needs, the weak curriculum provided in underresourced schools, the increasing segregation of these students in low-income schools that serve only students of color, and the low expectations held for these students by their schools, this is a pathway that can be altered. But the society must be willing to invest in sustained intervention that acknowledges the enormous hurdles that poverty, a history of undereducation and weak schooling can place in the way of those who strive to take another path.
Frances Contreras is an assistant professor at the University of Washington, and Patricia Gándara is a professor of education and codirector of the Civil Rights Project at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. They were recently featured speakers at Prepárate™, an annual College Board conference led and attended by educators who work with Latino students (www.collegeboard.com/preparate).
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