As higher education leaders mark 25 years since the creation of Hispanic-serving institutions, they're assessing how these colleges and universities can enroll and graduate more Latino students amid the fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Last fall, colleges saw a 5 percent drop in Latino undergraduate enrollments. The dramatic decrease came one year after Latino college enrollment had increased by nearly 2 percent, according to Deborah Santiago, CEO of Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit that analyzes how higher education institutions are enrolling, retaining and graduating Latino students.
"There was a lot of progress and accelerating enrollment. We were seeing increases in completion as well," Santiago said during a virtual briefing on Hispanic-serving institutions held on Wednesday. "In one year, we saw a precipitous drop, scaling back some of the enrollment progress."
While HSIs make up only about 18 percent of all colleges and universities, they enroll and graduate over 60 percent of the nation's Latino college students. HSIs are defined as institutions where at least a quarter of the student body is Hispanic.
In the briefing, education officials and Latino members of Congress reflected on the growth of these institutions while discussing how they can step up to recent challenges.
"Equity is a big focus for us moving forward," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said during the briefing. "Institutions like HSIs play a major role in that. So when we're talking about recovery as a country, we need to acknowledge HSIs and the important work that they do to promote equity and access for all students."
In their 25 years of existence, HSIs have grown exponentially, from about 189 colleges and universities to 539 as of last year. This is due to an increase in Latino college students who are mainly concentrated in several predominantly Hispanic areas, cities and states.