[lg policy] Hispanic-Serving Institutions Are Best Path for Increasing Latino STEM Success, Report Says

[Harold Schiffman]

Hispanic-Serving Institutions Are Best Path for Increasing Latino STEM
Success, Report Says
By Jennifer Gonzalez

To increase the number of Latino students with degrees in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics, a new report recommends that
community colleges improve student-transfer access to programs in
those disciplines, known as the STEM fields, at Hispanic-serving
institutions.

Because community colleges educate nearly 60 percent of all Latino
students in this country, the report concludes that strengthening
transfer access is the best way to ensure that Latino students
complete bachelor's degrees in the STEM fields.

The report, "Improving Transfer Access to STEM Bachelor's Degrees at
Hispanic-Serving Institutions through the America Competes Act," is
the latest of a series prepared by the University of Southern
California's Center for Urban Education.

Alicia C. Dowd, one of the report's authors, said one of the main
reasons Latino students are not transferring to four-year institutions
is their high placement rate in remedial math courses. And once they
are placed in those courses it is difficult for them to move on to
transfer-level math courses, she said.

"We are losing many, many students there," she said.

The education of young Latinos is imperative, given the fact that
Hispanic Americans are the fastest-growing and youngest demographic
group in the country, the report says. Latinos are projected to make
up nearly 30 percent of the U.S. population by 2040, and as baby
boomers age and retire, the nation will become increasingly dependent
on Latinos.

Latinos need to be ready to enter the work force especially in the
science and engineering fields, the report found. The National Science
Board estimates that jobs in those fields will grow by 26 percent from
2004 to 2014, compared to a 13-percent growth rate in all other
occupations.

The new report is part of a three-year project financed by the
National Science Foundation in an effort to develop a Hispanic-Serving
Institutions Undergraduate Initiative, authorized in the America
Competes Act.

The report shows that the number of Latinos earning bachelor's degrees
has increased over the last decade. However, the growth has occurred
disproportionately in non-science fields, and in the social sciences
and psychology rather than "harder" STEM disciplines.

>>From 1998 to 2007, there was a 64 percent increase in the number of
degrees awarded to Latino students in fields other than science and
engineering, but only a 50-percent increase in degrees in science and
engineering. Most of the increase in the sciences occurred primarily
in the social sciences and psychology, rather than in the biological
sciences, engineering, computer sciences, and other science fields.

In 2007, Latinos earned 8.2 percent of the bachelor's degrees awarded
in engineering and science fields.

Among the reasons for the disparity, the report says, is that while
Hispanic-serving colleges award 40 percent of all bachelor's degrees
earned by Latino students, they prepare just 20 percent of Latino STEM
graduates.

"Hispanic-serving institutions have been chronically underfunded in
the distribution of federal STEM research dollars, which has limited
their capacity to offer the undergraduate research opportunities that
are known to attract and retain students in the sciences," the
report's authors state.

Researchers also found disparities by type of institution for Latino
students who first earned an associate degree then went on to complete
a bachelor's degree in a STEM field, compared to peers who entered
four-year programs without completing an associate degree first.

At academically selective and private institutions, 42 percent of
those who entered with an associate degree went on to complete a
bachelor's, compared with 59 percent of those who entered without one.
The same trend was found at research universities, where 25.3 percent
of those who entered with an associate degree completed a bachelor's,
compared to 43.5 percent of those who entered without one.

At Hispanic-serving institutions, however, transfer students who
entered with an associate degree were more likely to graduate than
students who entered without one (32 percent, compared to 16.8
percent). The same was true at public four-year institutions (83
percent, as opposed to 62.9 percent).

http://chronicle.com/article/Hispanic-Serving-Institutions/64975/

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal.
(H. Schiffman, Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list