Excelencia in the News

By 2060, almost half of the state's residents will be Latino. College graduation rates have improved, but only 18% of Latino adults have a degree.

“As more and more institutions hit that enrollment threshold, we have to raise the standards and expectations of what it is to be really serving our students,” said Deborah Santiago, co-founder of Excelencia in Education, at an event in Washington, D.C., in September.

Being intentional about recruiting and serving Latino students, cultivating a familial community on campus and using data to implement and tailor student support initiatives were some of the strategies discussed during Excelencia in Education’s Accelerating Latino Student Success (ALASS) Institute on Friday.

The Academic ESL Program at Reading Area Community College received national recognition as one of the four finalists in the associate category at the Celebracion de Excelencia.

Beginning in January, Excelencia in Education will issue a "Seal of Excelencia" to colleges that meet a series of data-driven benchmarks on their commitment to ensuring that Latinx students succeed.

Excelencia in Education is the only national organization that recognizes evidence-based programs that accelerate Latino student success in higher education. NMSU’s Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement: RISE to the Post-Doctorate is among 21 finalists overall and one of only three graduate level finalists competing to be named 2018 Examples of Excelencia.

The Excelencia/Gallup report notes that the population of college-going Hispanic students is growing, and HSIs serve a significant portion of that group. During the 2016-17 academic year, HSIs accounted for 15% of higher education institutions in the U.S. but enrolled 65% of Latino undergraduates, the report found.

When colleges talk about enrolling more Hispanic students, they tend to think of a "traditional" age group. That’s understandable. After all, in the United States, the median age of Hispanics is 27; for whites, it’s 43. But what’s understandable isn’t the same as what’s desirable. And that’s one reason Deborah A. Santiago, who heads up Excelencia in Education, an organization seeking to improve educational outcomes for Latino students, has been working for the past few years to improve colleges’ outreach and service to Hispanic adults.

It’s not enough to increase Latino college and university enrollment or graduation numbers; higher educators need to prepare the ever-expanding young Latino population for the rest of their lives.