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College accessibility and success for Latinos in New York City

Factors contributing to Latino students entering college

According to Pew Research Center, 66% of Hispanic students who do not enroll into college after high school cited that the reason behind their decision was their need to support their families. Yet there are factors which contribute to those who do in fact decide to enroll into college despite their socioeconomic status. The cultural resources looked at were ethnic identity, family interdependence and parental support to distinguish how these factors helped Latino students, not only during the enrollment process to colleges, but also, to see if it were advantageous towards them having a positive college experience. The students looked at for the survey in the Journal of Adolescence were 123 Latino college students, mainly consisting of 84 females and 39 males. It was based off of information in which the student’s parents needed to provide, such as their occupations, educational levels, as well as information that needed to be provided by students, such as, if they were either native or foreign born, and in which socioeconomic background the students would be coming from; this could vary between very low, moderately low or medium/average which were important attributes to the study being done. The family interdependence served those in low socioeconomic statuses in a positive direction while most Latinos hold a part-time or full-time job and balance the responsibilities of their lives including work and family. Most Latino college students have a strong desire to succeed in their education as a repayment to not only their parents, but also the sacrifices their families made when immigrating to the United States. Ethnic identity can be a process when one explores the implication they have in their ethnicity which result in a stronger, more secure sense of self that helps in their decision making not only in college, but throughout their lives. Some disadvantages that lead to a negative college experience can range from such conditions of language barriers, stress, broader social and community networks within which Latino families are embedded. However, in Minding/Mending the Puerto Rican education pipeline in New York City, much of the Latino youth is living in poverty, specifically Puerto Rican youth, whom make much of the 21.5% of students enrolled in New York State public schools. According to the article, New York State public middle schools were reported having the least experienced teachers, most teachers teaching out of certification and even the highest rate of teacher turnover. The disadvantages highlighted in the article that focus on Latinos in middle school are pertinent because it shows just how early the Latino communities are faced with handicaps in the educational system. The High Schools in New York City as of 2002 were considered a weak promoting point because the students are seen to have less than a 50/50 chance of graduating on time or even at all. These city High Schools can be overly populated with majority being minority who happen to not be receiving the same attention as those in the white suburban counterparts. The students are provided with the bare minimum of information towards continuing their education, many being left wondering what they should do resulting in having to do research on their own because of the lack of information given relating to resources including financial aid and college life.

Accessibility to college readiness programs

As ways to promote college to Latino students in New York City, programs such as CREAR Futuros and ASPIRA were created to assist Latino students who have little knowledge about the benefits of an education past secondary school. Programs like ASPIRA, founded by Dr. Antonia Pantoja in 1961, were founded as a way to address the ever-growing issues such as drop-out rates and low educational attainment amongst the Latino community. The program was built off of the belief that Puerto Ricans could be freed from poverty by emphasizing a focus on educating the youth, developing leadership skills, as well as establishing a stronger sense of cultural identity in the community. Much like ASPIRA, CREAR Futuros is a coalition established to combat the ever-growing educational gaps observed in the Latino communities in New York City. After discovering the educational gap between whites and Latinos, the coalition aimed to promote practices and policies that would improve educational equity and level of accessibility to higher learning institutions amongst the Latino communities. In being developed, these programs set out to educate and support Latino communities through means of informal and formal educational and intervention programs. ASPIRA is a prime example of an organization that prioritized these educational efforts. In doing so, ASPIRA set out to establish themselves as a formal education service, creating charter schools in inner cities to improve the educational gap within the Latino communities. These programs were not only created to further educate the youth, they also aimed to incorporate the parents and families of the children into their education, urging the schools to rework parent-teacher nights as well as increase roles amongst the parent coordinators. CREAR Futuros was a group that placed a heavy emphasis on such movements. The coalition not only placed a heavy concern on parental involvement in the child’s education, it also aimed to make college accessible to those students who are immigrants and have no access to federal student aid and tuition assistance programs, despite being a part of the public-school system for most of their lives.

CREAR Futuros is a strong example of an awareness program that supports the Latino communities in New York City. This is because of their strong presence in City University of New York (CUNY) public schools; having been established in Lehman College and Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). This program is implemented in these schools with the purpose of providing mentorship for students and social networking amongst students and professors.

ASPIRA first began as a small non-profit organization in New York in 1961. As mentioned earlier, it was founded to improve the education of Puerto Ricans and Latino communities. It also aimed to provide opportunities for the youth and their families that they might not have been presented with before. Their facilities are found in midtown Manhattan at 15 W 36th Street.

Rates of enrollment, graduation and dropping out

Latinos are making huge advances in college enrollment. In 2014, 35% of Latinos, ages 18 to 24 were enlisted in a two-or four-year school, up from 22% out of 1993. That added up to 2.3 million Latino undergrads in 2014. Despite the fact that more Latinos are getting a postsecondary education than any time in recent memory, they still slack when compared to other ethnic groups in acquiring a four-year degree. Starting in 2014, among Latinos ages 25 to 29, only 15% of them have a four-year college education or higher. By examination, among a similar age gathering, around 41% of whites have a four-year college education or higher (as do 22% of blacks and 63% of Asians). Even though the rate of college attendance has risen over the years, it is still more unusual for Latinos, more than any other ethnic group, to enlist in senior colleges and achieve a four-year degree.

Over the previous decade, the Latino high school dropout rate has dropped significantly. The rate achieved a new low in 2014, dropping from 32% in the year 2000 to 12% in the year 2014 among the ages 18 to 24. This helped bring down the national dropout rate from 12% to 7% over the same period of time and age range. However, the Latino dropout rate remains higher than that of blacks (7%), whites (5%) and Asians (1%). The decrease in the Latino dropout rate is especially important, given the substantial increase in enrollment in U.S. open and tuition based schools. Between the years 1999 and 2016, the quantity of Latinos selected in the open and private nursery schools, from K-12 schools and colleges expanded 80%, from 9.9 million to 17.9 million.

Despite the drop-out rates decreasing throughout the country in high schools, in 2011, in New York City community colleges, there were an alarming rate of students who are not prepared for college immediately out of public high schools. This was seen in the number of students needing to take remedial reading, writing and math classes after entering from high school. Hostos Community College in the South Bronx has the city’s lowest two-year graduation rate — at 1.4 percent. Also, within six years 51% have dropped out from what are supposed to be two-year degree-granting institutions. About 28% actually manage to get a degree six years after enrolling at Kingsborough, Queensborough, LaGuardia, Hostos, Bronx or Borough of Manhattan Community Colleges.