In a third report, the center found that the number of young Hispanics going to college is increasing. But the study, which examined the latest available enrollment data from individual colleges, found that the number of Whites enrolling in four-year colleges is increasing even more rapidly — widening an already large gap between White and Latino college populations in key states. “When it comes to college enrollment, Hispanics are chasing a target that is accelerating ahead of them,” Fry says.
Key findings from the three reports:
- One-in-four Hispanic high school students attends one of the 300 public high schools that are in the top decile in size of student enrollment and also have a high proportion of students eligible for free or reduced-price school lunches. That’s compared with fewer than 1-in-10 Black students and just 1-in-100 White students.
- Only 8 percent of the nation’s teens are foreign-born, but nearly 25 percent of teen dropouts are foreign-born. Nearly 40 percent of these foreign-born dropouts are recent arrivals who interrupted their schooling before coming to the United States.
- Nationally, there was a 24 percent increase in the number of Latino freshmen in postsecondary institutions in 2001 compared with 1996. Among four-year colleges, Latino freshmen enrollment increased by 29 percent while two-year colleges experienced a 14 percent increase.
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
