Credit: Larry Gordon/EdSource
Credit: Larry Gordon/EdSourceCalifornia’s Latino students are making progress in higher education but colleges and state policymakers should take further steps to help close a continuing ethnic achievement gap, according to a new report by the Campaign for College Opportunity.
The nonprofit advocacy group headquartered in Los Angeles called for a series of reforms, including: expanding enrollment at the 10-campus University of California and the 23-campus California State University systems so there is more room for students of Latino heritage, improving community college programs that guarantee transfers to four-year-schools if students take the right courses, getting high schools to offer more college prep classes and bolstering state college financial aid.
The study also focused on remedial education, the non-credit courses in English and math that students judged to have weak skills are required to take at community colleges. (Cal State dropped remedial courses this fall.) Latino students have been disproportionately placed into those remedial courses, which are associated with lower degree completion and transfer rates, the study says. A new law mandates that community colleges change the way students are placed in the classes starting next year, ending placement exams and giving more weight to high school grades. The colleges must successfully implement that reform, the study urged.
Such changes could help all students but particularly Latinos, said the report, which was released Monday.
(The report, which is entitled “State of Higher Education for Latinx in California,” uses the term Latinx as a gender-neutral replacement for Latino and Latina, referring to people of Latin American origin. EdSource normally uses Latino to describe all those students.)
“If California is going to continue to thrive economically as a hub of innovation, technology and entrepreneurship, we must increase the educational success of a growing and disproportionally young Latinx community and ensure significantly more Latinx are prepared for college, attend college and reach their college dreams,” the document declares.
More Latino students are earning high school diplomas: 86 percent of Latino 19-year-olds had graduated high school in 2016 compared to 74 percent a decade before. And more Latino high school graduates are meeting the course requirements for admission to UC and Cal State: 39 percent compared to 25 percent in 2006.
Yet white students still do much better on those measures in part because Latinos “are more likely to attend high schools that do not provide equitable opportunities to be competitive in college admissions,” the report says. For example, it points out that predominantly white high schools tend to offer more Advanced Placement courses than mainly Latino schools do.
At the college and university level, disparities persist, the study emphasizes. About 42 percent of Latino students at community colleges earn a certificate, diploma or transfer to a bachelor’s degree school, 12 percentage points below the rate for whites. And while graduation rates for all groups have improved at UC and Cal State, some gaps between Latino and whites actually have widened. For example, only 12 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites who started Cal State in 2010 graduated in four years, a gap that is eight points larger than a decade before even though both rates improved over that time.
The report urges state leaders to set strategies for “closing graduation and completion gaps” affecting Latino students. Among other recommendations, it says that every high school should require all students to complete the applications for federal and state financial aid for college and that UC and Cal State need to expand the pathways that guaranteed transfer admission of community college students who successfully complete a prescribed set of courses.
The Campaign for College Opportunity document says that Latino students have been hurt by Proposition 209, the measure California voters approved in 1996 to ban the use of racial and ethnic quotas and affirmative action in public college admission. But the report does not specifically call for it to be repealed. In recommending that UC and Cal State add enrollment, the study says increasing capacity for all Californians will benefit Latinos.
At two of the state’s systems of higher education, enrollment of Latino undergraduates is close to their 47 percent share of the state’s population between ages 18 to 24. They comprise 45 percent at community colleges and 42 percent at Cal State. Yet just 27 percent of UC undergraduates are Latino.
The study says it would be better for many students to start directly at UC or Cal State rather than at community colleges, which tend to have worse completion rates than the universities. As it stands, too many Latino students who would be eligible for UC or Cal State based on the high school courses they took, their grades and test scores are starting instead at community colleges; that is partly because many come from low-income families and want to attend college part-time and hold down jobs, according to the report.
The college completion rates for Latino adults in California have improved over the past decade or so. In 2006, just 15 percent of Latino adults ages 25 to 64 in the state had an associate or bachelor’s degree and that rose to 18 percent by 2016. But the report, citing federal data, also shows big gaps: in comparison, 62 percent of Asian adults in the state, 52 percent of whites and 34 percent of blacks had earned those degrees.
The study also calls for increasing the numbers of Latino faculty and campus leaders, as the Campaign for College Opportunity has previously urged for all underrepresented minority groups and women. When students see people who look like them among professors and deans, “they will feel more welcome, engaged, supported and are more likely to succeed,” the new report stated.
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Olivia Pacheco 4 years ago4 years ago
Please do not place more weight on high school grades! Grade inflation is real. High school administrators are telling their teachers that grades are too low and “encouraging” teachers to increase grades. The traditional bell curve, I was told, now needs to be at a B, with minimal Cs and hardly any Ds and Fs, regardless of how well students actually demonstrate mastery of the skills or content of a particular subject. Students are “placed” … Read More
Please do not place more weight on high school grades! Grade inflation is real. High school administrators are telling their teachers that grades are too low and “encouraging” teachers to increase grades. The traditional bell curve, I was told, now needs to be at a B, with minimal Cs and hardly any Ds and Fs, regardless of how well students actually demonstrate mastery of the skills or content of a particular subject. Students are “placed” into AP classes because of these “good grades,” for which they are not well-prepared, as evident by the number of students who earn As and Bs in their AP classes but fail to pass the College Board AP exams meant to measure mastery. With the high school exit exam suspended indefinitely, and remedial classes gone by the wayside, there is little now to prove student mastery except high school grades, which, sadly, can no longer be trusted.
Nancy Young 4 years ago4 years ago
What, if anything, is being done in the elementary schools to assist children whose parents may not know English and who may struggle throughout both elementary and high school? We live near UC Merced, one of the most ethnically diverse universities in the United States. Our 501 (c) (3) hires many UC Merced students, most of whom are first generation college students, as well as children of immigrants. Almost without exception, … Read More
What, if anything, is being done in the elementary schools to assist children whose parents may not know English and who may struggle throughout both elementary and high school? We live near UC Merced, one of the most ethnically diverse universities in the United States. Our 501 (c) (3) hires many UC Merced students, most of whom are first generation college students, as well as children of immigrants. Almost without exception, these students are amazing, compassionate and very hard workers who work diligently in their classes. I hope that California does everything possible to encourage, rather than to discourage, these remarkable children to attend college.
Bill Conrad 4 years ago4 years ago
The achievement gap for Latino students in K-12 education is stark. I have documented this difference for school districts in Silicon Valley at http://sipbigpicture.com. In 2017, in San Jose Unified, only 14% of students met state math standards while 79% of Asians met the math standards. It should be noted that the Hispanic subgroup also includes English Learners who participate in dual immersion programs that can extend the acquisition of English from 6-8 years … Read More
The achievement gap for Latino students in K-12 education is stark. I have documented this difference for school districts in Silicon Valley at http://sipbigpicture.com. In 2017, in San Jose Unified, only 14% of students met state math standards while 79% of Asians met the math standards.
It should be noted that the Hispanic subgroup also includes English Learners who participate in dual immersion programs that can extend the acquisition of English from 6-8 years which slows access to grade level academic standards.
The low Hispanic subgroup performance is a bellwether for the lack of system-wide high quality curricula and professional practices. White and Asians can circumvent inadequate curricula and professional practices through tutoring and outside small group support.
The improvement of the Hispanic academic performance is dependent upon the acceleration of English Language acquisition and the system-wide improvement of curricula and professional practices. Improvements in graduation rates reflect bureaucratic changes to graduation requirements and pressure on teachers to pass students for attendance and not achievement. It is not a good metric for actual improvement in Latino student readiness for college.
Hannah Katz 4 years ago4 years ago
Larry, you practically ignored the Asian American students. Are there none at California institutions of higher learning? Of course, and they are significantly overrepresented, as compared to Asian numbers in the California population. Asian immigrants to California tend to be highly educated, and their children are understandably achievers as well. They do better than whites. Perhaps better results would occur if we would be more picky regarding who is allowed to immigrate … Read More
Larry, you practically ignored the Asian American students. Are there none at California institutions of higher learning? Of course, and they are significantly overrepresented, as compared to Asian numbers in the California population. Asian immigrants to California tend to be highly educated, and their children are understandably achievers as well. They do better than whites. Perhaps better results would occur if we would be more picky regarding who is allowed to immigrate here. We have few jobs available for low-skill workers, and a need for highly skilled workers.
Replies
Jennifer G 4 years ago4 years ago
I cannot believe you said, we can fix the low Latinx graduation rates if we (I’m assuming the USA) was more “picky with who immigrates here.” That is a completely ignorant statement, for you to say and think that people willingly leave their loved ones back home because they want to. That is not how migration works Hannah.