Excelencia in Education accelerates Latino student success, enhancing our workforce, leadership, and economy. Ensuring America’s Future Increasing Latino college completion is key to future prosperity Excelencia’s work centers on one fact: Our country will thrive if we intentionally serve Latino students while serving all. Given current educational attainment levels for Latinos, their projected demographic growth in the U.S., and national demands for economic competitiveness, increasing Latino degree attainment is vital to reaching our country’s college completion goals and strengthening our workforce and civic leadership. To ensure America’s future, Excelencia shapes a policy strategy focused on getting Latino students to and through college. Stay Informed Our Tactical Plan for Latino Student Success How does Excelencia advance Latino student success in higher education? Inform Excelencia uses a Latino lens to inform and compel action to serve Latino students. Promote Excelencia brings attention to what works to improve Latino student success. Organize Excelencia organizes leaders with a common cause of accelerating Latino student success. Advocate Excelencia advocates for action and investment that intentionally serves Latino students. Latest from Excelencia Institutional Resilience in Puerto Rico: A First Look at Efforts by Puerto Rican HSIs Excelencia in Education collaborated with five Puerto Rican HSIs to understand their institutional resilience efforts. Over the last five years, Puerto Rico and its colleges and universities have faced financial, natural, demographic, health, and leadership challenges. The intersection of all these challenges created a nexus for institutional resilience efforts. Learn more about how these five HSIs have adapted to compounding challenges in their current context.Learn More Call for Submissions! Know of a program you want to submit? Elevate programs you believe are making a positive difference for Latino students to a national audience by submitting them for the 2023 Examples of Excelencia. Submissions are being accepted at the associate, baccalaureate, and graduate levels, as well as at community-based organizations. The deadline to share your program profile submission is Friday, March 31, 2023. Submit Program Now Latinas at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) The Latino population in the United States has grown significantly over the last decade, and Latina representation has grown more quickly than Latinos. This factsheet provides an overview of the Latina population, as well as the college enrollment and educational attainment of Latinas at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) — a critical set of institutions enrolling and graduating Latinos in the U.S.Learn More Excelencia on Medium: Institutional Resilience in Puerto Rico This new analysis examines the island’s universities as accelerators of economic mobility for Latino students and their communities, demonstrating how Puerto Rican institutions offer a better return on investment in higher education for low-income students than can be achieved almost anywhere else in the U.S.Learn More Expand Your Knowledge with Excelencia How does intentionally SERVING Latino students benefit our society? Examples of Latinos are a young, fast-growing population, yet they earn degrees at a lower rate than other demographic groups. Excelencia analysis shows that closing the equity gap in college completion by accelerating Latino student success will strengthen America’s workforce and civic leadership. See Our Analysis How can we inform educational practice and policy to facilitate positive change on behalf of Latino students? Excelencia’s research provides a basis of information on the status of Latino students in higher education from which to compel positive action by institutional leaders and measure progress toward accelerating Latino student success. From Latino enrollment and workforce participation, to how Latino students pay for college, to mapping Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), this research informs and compels action. Explore Our Interactive Dashboard What works to improve Latino degree attainment and how can we expand these practices? In 2005, we initiated Examples of Excelencia — the only national effort to recognize and promote evidence-based practices promoting Latino student success. We have celebrated over 350 programs making a difference, all of which are featured in our Growing What Works Database. Explore Our Database How does Excelencia catalyze institutional transformation that produces meaningful results for Latino students? In addition to building our action-oriented network of Presidents for Latino Student Success, our technical assistance opportunities and Seal of Excelencia certification support and reinforce institutional capacity to intentionally SERVE Latino students using comprehensive strategies that align data, practice, and leadership. Discover the Seal What are Excelencia’s policy priorities for supporting Latino student success in higher education? When it comes to closing equity gaps in degree attainment and increasing educational and economic opportunity for Latino and post-traditional students in higher education, Excelencia focuses on four policy priorities: affordability, institutional capacity, retention, and workforce. Review Our Policy Agenda
