Latino dilemma
More in college, more drop out – report
The number of young Latino New Yorkers enrolling in college has skyrocketed in recent years — but so has the number dropping out, according to a new report.
College enrollment among 18-to-24 year-old Latinos in New York City surged from 29% in 2007 to 38% in 2017, researchers from the nonprofits Here to Here and the Hispanic Federation found — by far the greatest increase of any racial or ethnic group.
But alongside the increase in Hispanic college enrollment came a corresponding surge in the number of young Latinos failing to finish their degrees, researchers found. As of 2017, 23% who had started college never finished their degrees, compared with just 13% a decade earlier.
Some education advocates worry a growing number of Hispanic students will be saddled with the financial burdens of college without reaping the rewards. “Latinx students are going to college at rapidly increasing rates, but their completion rates are very troubling,” said Lazar Treschan, a vice president of Here to Here and co-author of the report. “We need to support them to get past just ’going to college’ generally, to where they are empowered to make informed decisions that align with their personal goals.”
City officials have touted increasing college enrollment among city teens — a trend the authors say is largely driven by the rising number of college-bound Latino students.
But that growing enrollment can be a double-edged sword if students don’t have the support or wherewithal to finish their degrees, the report authors say.
Earning differences for students who’ve attended some colleges and those who’ve gotten a degree are stark, researchers found. Hispanic 25-to-50-yearolds in New York with some college credits but no degree can expect to earn nearly $10,000 a year less than those with a degree, according to the report.
Yet both groups will be strapped with similar debt burdens.
Latino students are “being told they need to go to college but not being told there’s a lot of financial difficulties at times,” said Jorge Morales, a city public school graduate and current University of Rochester junior.
Morales, 20, the son of Mexican immigrants and a first-generation college student, didn’t “really have someone in my family to touch base with when it comes to the [college] process.”
He has kept on track with his financial and academic responsibilities in part with the help of counselors at his well-resourced private university. But he said he has friends who’ve struggled to pay for their classes while accumulating the credits they need to graduate on time.
Applying for financial aid is “a really annoying process,” Morales said. “A lot of people don’t even know if they’re doing it right.”
A big share of the new wave of Hispanic college students has enrolled in community colleges, which “suffer from lack of funding that supports guidance, resources, and safety nets to keep students engaged,” the report said. Researchers also say Latino students may get less exposure to internships and work experience that help narrow down their education track, and motivate them to stick with it.
Morales said his experience working with advocacy groups as a high school student set him on the path to study politics and business, but “when you can’t make that direct connection it’s a little harder to get the sense of why you should study that and why you should devote so much time.”
The study’s authors suggest expanding work and internship opportunities starting in high school and stepping up mental health support, including access to bilingual counselors, once students arrive in college.
Morales emphasized the importance of advising students on how to manage their payments and financial aid.
“If you don’t have a financial plan in place it’s literally going to eat you up,” he said.