HispanicVista Columnists

Many Latinos Pass Up Higher Education

 By Domingo Ivan Casañas/HispanicVista.com

May 2, 2005

Well, you have heard the statistics many times over, that by the year 2015 Hispanics will be the largest minority group in the United States of America.   The income levels of the Hispanics could also go up a great deal if one thing would happen between now and then: "Latino students graduating from college".

What I am referring to is the lack of young students setting their goals high to improve their lives by going to college.

The facts are in family backgrounds from those who stop after their high school education because they need to go to work to help out their families to those who don’t have the desire to achieve a higher education or don’t feel that they can afford it.  Many things can keep a Latino out of college, just because many are not encouraged by their own parents to do so, because they never went themselves. 

Many Hispanic parents are not up to keep up with Advanced Placement programs, and many are not convinced themselves that it is a necessity to get the higher education.  Even, though these facts are sad, many schools unfortunately do not put students on track to get into rigorous courses that will challenge the individual to greater heights. 

With many first generation college students or those coming in from Spanish only household it becomes a challenge to change roles, since as young as sixteen years old children at times  feel that they are the parent because they need to feel out financial aid forms on their own.

Many Latino parents do not see the advantage of student loans because they are less willing to borrow than any other ethnic group.  

Another big problem in this scenario is that many of the high schools that Latino’s attend are in concentrated districts that may be under funded and not provide enough counselor hours to be of significant help and motivation for the Hispanic student.  

So what does this all mean?  First of all it is a big problem for the United States of America to know that the fastest growing segment of the student population are Hispanics and knowing that the Hispanic population keeps increasing but the salaries of Hispanics won’t.  Why?   The simple reason is that they are not motivated to go after their higher education. This will result in a huge loss of dollars, probably in the billion-dollar range for the U.S. economy.   What will happen if this changes for the better?  According, to the Hispanic Association of colleges and Universities (HACU) and the Educational Testing Service, just by making the gap closer than what we have today of Latino’s pursuing higher education the USA would add at least $130 billion dollars to the US economy and over $45 Billion dollars in annual tax revenues because it would raise the income levels of Hispanic families.

So what is the solution?   It is my opinion that Colleges and Universities with our pleas and encouragement could start taking a special interest in providing special counselors that would come to the middle schools and high schools and bring information about their respective colleges, admission standards, financial aids, with a motivational message from current Latino College students that can share what they had to go thru to get where they are and their personal goals as well as how proud they feel for themselves and how proud their families must be.   Locally, it is my sincere wish to have the middle schools and high schools, request local leaders, business people that are Hispanic like myself that have attended College to give talks (like I do) to our Latino students, to become mentors, to motivate them, and to let them know that it is possible!  

Even in a group of 30 Latino youth, if we can help one or two get motivated, to dream and to set their goals high we as a Latino community will be doing a great service to our future leaders and to the economy of this great land that we live in.

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Domingo Ivan Casañas, a contributing columnist to HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com), is a writer for several newspapers in his community of Northern California.  Mr. Casañas has been nominated for the Citizen of the year in his hometown.  He has also been nominated for the Cesar Chavez Award in recognition of continuing Community Service and Emodiment of the Cesar Chavez Values.  Domingo is the AUTHOR of a new book about Cuba and a journey to fredom that will debut in June 2005 titled: CUBA THE TARNISHED PEARL.  Excerpts of this book may be read at: http://www.CubanBook.com email:   LatinoAchievers@aol.com