The Washington, D.C. based group Excelencia in Education has released a report which shows that just 16% of Californian Latinos have college degrees compared with 39% of all adults in California. The study, authored by Deberoh A. Santiago, shows that the college gap is a potentially serious problem for California where 38% of the population is Latino. Across the state, 50% of grade school students are Latino, and this figure rises to 75% for students in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
It will be impossible for the U.S. to meet its future societal and workforce needs if Latino educational attainment is not substantially improved,” said Dennis Jones, president of the Colorado-based National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. “If Latinos are not part of the success story then the U.S. itself does not have a success story.”
Last year, only 21% of Latinos nationwide had attained an associate’s degree or higher. This compares with national averages of 57% of Asians, 44% of whites and 30% of black people
In Florida, home to the nation’s third largest Hispanic population, only 31% of Hispanics aged between 25 and 64 have an associate’s degree compared to 37% of all Floridians in the same age group.
Florida is, however, one state that has been working towards narrowing the education gap. The report shows that the number of Hispanics within the state who possess undergraduate degrees rose by 13% in the 2006-2008 period, almost double the 7% increase for students from other racial and ethnic backgrounds
Read the full article here: http://www.educationnews.org/k-12-schools/excelencia-in-ed-addresses-the-latino-education-gap/
