Latino Promise-HACER Program
Institution:
Fairleigh Dickinson University-Metropolitan Campus
State:
New Jersey
Academic Level:
Associate
Issue Area:
Access
Program Focus:
Bilingual/ESL, First Year Support
Key Personnel:
Irene Oujo
Contact Info:
Overview
Latino Promise and HACER are sister programs whose mission are to provide access to higher education by offering associate degree programs with the benefits of a university setting to traditional-aged, Latino students. Ultimately, Latino Promise-HACER ensures that primarily first-generation college students can transfer into a bachelor’s program of their choice. Latino Promise and HACER offer the same curriculum, but HACER (Hispanics Achieving College Education Recognition) helps students preserve and even improve their native Spanish while teaching them English through ESL; these students gradually transition from taking bi-lingual coursework to English-only. The Latino Promise program offers instruction in English.
Program Description
Both programs seek to redress educational, economic, and social barriers by recruiting in immigrant-heavy school districts, offering workshops for families on financial aid and a one-credit course on transitioning to college life which promotes student retention. The programs provide a pre-college summer program, small classes, academic support, financial grants, personalized advising, and cultural enrichment all designed to mold high school graduates from the local communities into successful college students. Reduced-cost, student trips to Philadelphia and/or Boston, to plays on Broadway, and soon to our British campus provide cultural enrichment beyond coursework.
Outcome
The average graduation rate since 2010 for Latino Promise is 40%, which is more than double the current average of 18% graduation rate for Latino students in associate programs at New Jersey two- year institutions.
Latino Promise time to (associate) degree is at 2.19 years (2012-2021 average). For the HACER cohort, it is 2.13 years (2018-2021).
A persistence rate for Latino Promise students of 93% from fall to spring over the past three years.
For HACER, the average graduation rate is 25% (2019-2022 anticipated).
