A Quiet Crisis
Conference highlights higher education disparities between Latino men and women
By Patrick Harris
Los Angeles
The higher college enrollment and graduation rates of women versus men has long been considered a crisis in the Black community. But the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute recently addressed a similar, less well-documented, educational disparity within the Latino community.
“The Unacknowledged Crisis: Latino Males and Higher Education,” a daylong conference held in October, drew 560 attendees, including scholars and public officials. The conference was aimed at exploring reasons behind the lack of college degrees among Latino men and identifying ways to combat the trend.
“Most of the research is based solely on race, it was our goal to bring out several hundred people to deal with the gender inequality of Latinos in higher education,” says Dr. Harry P. Pachon, president of the institute and professor of public policy at the University of Southern California.
Approximately 20 percent more Hispanic women go to college than men, leading almost inevitably to more female graduates. Pachon says the disparity can be attributed to factors beyond culture. For example, 80 percent to 90 percent of elementary and secondary school teachers are female, and consequently serve as role models for Hispanic girls. Pachon also notes that many Hispanic students and their families do not understand the process of getting into or paying for college.
“When we found out that many parents didn’t know the first tool on how to finance a college education, Sallie Mae started a 90-city bus tour, going to barrios, promoting that there are loans, scholarships and grants available,” Pachon says. The effort by the Sallie Mae Foundation was prompted by the institute’s 2002 report “College Knowledge: What Latino Parents Need to Know and Why They Don’t Know It.”
