Project Gaining Access 'n Academic Success: Raising the Bar Among Hispanic-Serving Institutions in California

• In Event: 60.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 60.083-19 - Division I Roundtable E. Researching a Region for Education Equity: A Symposium With University of California, San Diego, Faculty and Researchers

Abstract

Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) have grown substantially across the United States in states with sizable and rapidly increasing Latino populations and represent a plausible avenue for increasing Latino college completion rates. California is home to more than one third of all Hispanic Serving Institutions of higher education. There are over 127 Hispanic Institutions in California, and 85 of these postsecondary HSIs are community colleges. In addition, there are an additional 77 institutions that are “emerging” Hispanic Serving Institutions, with at least 15-24 percent of their student body comprised of Latino students (Santiago, 2010). However, despite the growing presence of HSIs in the postsecondary sector, the outcomes of these institutions in optimally serving Latinos remain a challenge, with Latino students experiencing high attrition rates and low college completion rates in the two-year and four-year sectors.
This project, using mixed-method approaches, explores the present outcomes, practices, identities, and student experiences within Hispanic Serving Institutions in the state of California, with the intent of providing policy and institutional supports to raise the bar among HSIs to better serve students. Raising Latino college transfer and completion rates is a viable approach to investing in a postsecondary sector and community that will require greater levels of college educated workers. Without altering the pathway of limited postsecondary attainment, Latinos are on the pathway to becoming the largest underclass in the nation (Contreras, 2010; 2011; Gandara, 2009).
A concerted focus on university efforts and partnerships with Hispanic Serving Institutions in California, has the potential to completely alter the capacity of the next generation of Latino students and families by ensuring an economically stable state with a highly skilled workforce. Project GANAS is working to develop tangible recommendations for this rapidly expanding segment of higher education to realize its full potential for raising the social, economic and political capacity of the Latino community by optimally serving students who choose to attend HSIs, and in turn, transform the next generation and the state of California in the process.

Author

• Frances Contreras, University of California - San Diego