Conference Spotlights Latinos in College

This week, more than 500 educators gathered from across the nation for Prepárate, a conference devoted to educating Latinos in America. The College Board is pushing a goal to increase the percentage of Americans with a degree to 55 percent by 2025, a pipe dream if more Latinos do not succeed in college.

The effort dovetails with a national focus on improving graduation rates and boosting the number of college graduates. President Barack Obama has staked a goal, to once again become the global leader in degree attainment by 2020, and major foundations such as Lumina and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are pouring money into the Complete College America initiative.

Just this week, Excelencia in Education, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, unveiled Roadmap for Ensuring America's Future, a tool for colleges and policymakers to help Latinos earn 5.5 million college degrees by 2020.

Deborah Santiago, vice president for policy and research at Excelencia in Education will present at the Prepárate conference.