More Latinos are not only enrolling in four-year college programs, but an increasing number are graduating as well, according to a report by Huff Post Latino.
The Education Trust’s recent mini-brief “Intentionally Successful: Improving Minority Student College Graduation Rates” reported that Hispanic students showed “slight increases” despite remaining behind non-Hispanic white students.
However, during 2009 and 2011, graduation rates for Latinos rose 4.7 percent, while whites’ graduation rates increased by only two percent.
“The study, which lists colleges both leading and lagging in closing the college completion gap, also dispels the notion that student characteristics determine graduation rates,” the report said.
During those two years, Hispanic college enrollment at four-year colleges also increased by 22 percent.
Michael Dannenberg, director of The Education Trust’s Higher Education and Finance Policy, said that success in college is “not simply a function of student characteristics and high price does not necessarily equal high quality.”
“What individual colleges do often can make all the difference in the world between a student graduating or leaving with a pile of debt and no degree,” Dannenberg said in the report. “Demography is not destiny and what colleges do matters.”
(Photo by Getty Images via Huff Post Latino)
