Excelencia in the News

The WSU College Assistant Migrant Program was recognized as a finalist for a national award given by the Latino education organization Excelencia in Education.

Excelencia in Education celebrated its 15th anniversary with its Accelerating Latino Student Success Institute – or its quinceañera as Excelencia in Education President Sarita Brown put it. Higher education professionals gathered in Washington D.C. to examine the needs of Latino students, from federal policies to the faculty in their classrooms.

The UTSA First Generation and Transfer Student Center has been recognized by Excelencia in Education as a Program to Watch for 2019–2020. UTSA is one of only 20 programs out of 166 that were nominated for this recognition.

As colleges and universities work to reach enrollment and college completion goals, increased focus has turned to the Hispanic populations in their communities.

Colleges and universities eager to recruit students can look at the K-12 student population to see potential students, says Dr. Deborah A. Santiago, CEO of Excelencia in Education.

“The education pipeline is going to be full of Latinos because we’re young and fast-growing,” says Santiago.

Hispanic-serving institutions are rapidly growing in number, but the federal aid available to them is shrinking almost as fast.

Nationwide, the percentage of Hispanic or Latino adults ages 25 or over with a diploma has risen from 53 percent in 1995 to 72 percent last year, says the advocacy and research group Excelencia in Education.

Dr. Deborah A. Santiago, co-founder and chief executive officer of Excelencia in Education, says that, in addition to creating a positive campus climate, intentionally serving Latinx or Hispanic students means enrolling them, retaining them, supporting them financially, graduating them and having staff and faculty that is representative of Hispanic groups on campus.

Latinx are half as likely as non-Hispanic whites to hold a bachelor’s degree, and the gulf has widened since the early 2000s. Experts say part of the reason so few Latinx students finish college is that they are ending up at overcrowded, underfunded community colleges as well as less-selective universities. With Latinx expected to make up 28.6 percent of the U.S. population by 2060, and well-paying jobs dwindling for workers who don’t hold bachelor’s degrees, pressure is rising on schools to tailor their services to help more of these students to and through college.