Nonprofit Group Says California Latinos Are Crucial to National Degree-Attainment Goals

Unless California is able to increase the number of its Latinos with college degrees, the United States will fall short of having the world's highest proportion of college graduates by 2020, according to the advocacy group Excelencia in Education.

The group released findings on Tuesday that provided a profile of Latino-student college completion in California. The release is part of a 50-state project to emphasize Latino students' role in reaching President Obama's 2020 goal.

California, the fourth state for which Excelencia has aggregated data, after Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas, has the largest Latino population of any state in the country.