Later, if students are having money problems, "We have an emergency financial aid fund that they can use," she says. The school serves many low-income students, 96 percent of which are on some form of financial aid.
Among small and medium-sized schools with large Latino student bodies, St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas with a student body of 4,900 likewise has an admirable retention rate, Ekman says.
The retention rate of 84.5 percent can be attributed to "starting at the beginning of the student's experience with us and providing a sense of place," St. Edwards communications director Michelle Diaz says. "It's not something you work on down the road."
Ekman says while his group's members beat back the early part of the recession by focusing immediately on students' financial aid, it is not something they can do all the time. “Colleges helped a lot by sweetening the pot, but they can't dodge the bullet every year,” he said.
While President Barack Obama's stimulus plan has increased funding for Pell Grants, there's a limit to what colleges can do semester after semester, he says. One bright sign is that the nation's economy appears to be on the mend, “but I sure can't make any predictions,” Ekman said.
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