A recent study published by Excelencia in Education and the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) stated that the number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, or HSIs, increased by 14.5% in the past year.
The research also suggests that the number of U.S. colleges and universities with 25% or higher Latino student enrollment has been rapidly increasing every year since 1995.
“To me, the critical point here is that in one year the number of institutions that met enrollment criteria grew by the largest number since HSIs were defined…and that’s a significant increase,” said Deborah Santiago, Co-Founder and Vice President for policy and research at Excelencia in Education.
According to the data, HSIs are not only growing significantly, but also increasing the rate of Latino enrollment in college. Currently, HSIs represent 10.5% of non-profit colleges and universities, yet serve about 56% of Latino undergraduate and graduate students.
The HSI lists are created annually by both Excelencia in Education and HACU using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).
Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education maintains its own category of HSIs that are eligible to compete for Title V education funding, which requires meeting criteria beyond enrollment. The defining characteristic of HSIs is their Latino enrollment, not their institutional mission, therefore increasing funding opportunities for Latino students seeking higher post-secondary education.
Diverse Issues in Higher Education
[…] are paying attention and are working to fix these hurdles. In the past year alone, there was an increase of 14.5% of Hispanic-Serving Institutions and there have been more efforts to grow the number of […]