WASHINGTON – Faced with few resources, cultural barriers and pressing family responsibilities, Latino youths continue to find that accessing higher education is harder for them than counterparts of other races, a new survey by the Pew Hispanic Center finds.
Released Wednesday, results from the organization’s National Survey of Latinos drew responses from 1,240 youths ages 16 to 25 and from 772 adults ages 26 and older. The survey found that while 88 percent of young Latinos view college education as a necessary factor in getting ahead in life, less than half of that group, 48 percent, intends to pursue a bachelor’s degree.
Just 33 percent of Latinos remain enrolled in school after age 18, the study finds, trailing a general U.S. population that has 42 percent enrollment after the same age.
Juan Sepulveda, executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, said Tuesday at a conference that, in fact, two-year colleges are more the norm for young Latinos able to reach the post-secondary level.
“We know that as Latinos there aren’t enough of us going [to college] today,” Sepulveda said. “If we go, community college is where we start.”
It’s where 19-year-old Guadalupe Hernandez started – she enrolled at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Md. to save money. A first-generation, American-born daughter of Mexican and Nicaraguan immigrants, Hernandez said there’s an element of proving herself as a young Latina.
“Like I can succeed,” Hernandez said, “like I’m not another stereotype.”
Hernandez said family ties run deep within Latino culture, to the point that responsibility to close relatives and even extended family can be an immediate barrier to education.
“The Latino and the American culture is a lot different,” Hernandez said. “It’s your family first, and then yourself. That’s how it is.”
According to the survey, family responsibilities are the main reason why Latinos choose not to continue education, with 74 percent of young respondents falling into this category. Limited English skills as a reason for leaving school ran a distant second.
Diversity among the young Latino population f
urther complicates educational achievement, with the survey finding that foreign-born students, who make up 35 percent of all Latino youths, are much more likely to drop out of high school or abandon higher education. Only 20 percent of foreign-born Latinos pursue school after age 18, the survey found.
Most of these students fall under the English a
s a Second Language, or ESL, category in public schools. Pew Hispanic Center Senior Research Associate Richard Fry said this group is becoming increasingly isolated.
“They’re increasingly going to school with themselves,” Fry said. “[But] they’re not really upset about the institutions educating them … it presents a dilemma.”
Sepulveda said President Barack Obama’s administration will be working to foster a “college-going culture” within the Latino community, as well as looking at ways to improve college access for young Latinos. Among other developments is a streamlined online financial aid application slated to be unveiled by Jan. 1, Sepulveda said.
But students like Marilyn Molina, 21, will need more. Molina, a high school dropout working toward her GED through alternative schooling, said when she left Bladensburg High in Bladensburg, Md., her absence went unnoticed.
“[Teachers] don’t sit there and talk to you about financial aid,” Molina said, “or [ask] ‘what do you want to be?’”
An accompanying study released by Pew Wednesday revealed that young Latinas are the least engaged with work and school than any other race-gender group, with 81 percent enrolled in work or active in the labor force. Black males, a race-gender group often scrutinized for historically low engagement rates, post 84 percent enrollment.