It’s Time for Colleges to Stop Overlooking Hispanic Adults

Hispanic adults are often overlooked by colleges. Can a new effort change that?

When colleges talk about enrolling more Hispanic students, they tend to think of a "traditional" age group. That’s understandable. After all, in the United States, the median age of Hispanics is 27; for whites, it’s 43.

But what’s understandable isn’t the same as what’s desirable.

And that’s one reason Deborah A. Santiago, who heads up Excelencia in Education, an organization seeking to improve educational outcomes for Latino students, has been working for the past few years to improve colleges’ outreach and service to Hispanic adults.

Last week, those efforts paid off. Her group and the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning jointly announced a new program that will help 15 Hispanic-serving institutions examine how well they’re serving adults and share the research and findings. Three nonprofit groups — Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation & Affiliates, the Kresge Foundation, and the Greater Texas Foundation — are putting up $2.5 million to cover the costs.

This project interests me for two reasons. In June I reported on a study by the Education Trust that showed the glaring gaps in educational attainment between white and Hispanic adults (and also between white and black adults). In releasing those findings, the Ed Trust experts argued that policy makers should recognize that students of different races and ethnicities may be affected by their proposals in different ways. In other words, a woke wonk (or journalist) should recognize that sometimes a socioeconomic lens doesn’t show the full picture. Message received, even as I recognize the delicate balance this requires: being conscious of racial and ethnic factors without falling into stereotypes.

The second reason: I was curious to learn what factors seemed to affect enrollment of Latino adults, as compared with adults of other ethnicities. Are there really big differences?

The answer, according to Santiago, is yes. And also no. “It’s not that the services are unique for Hispanics,” she told me. Like many other adult students, Hispanics need programs that are convenient and affordable and designed to recognize the life experiences they bring to the classroom. But if colleges expect to serve Hispanic students, “there needs to be an awareness and intentionality for this population” too, she said.

One way to develop that is through outreach. “If you’re not even reaching out to where many of them live and work, you’re not going to get them,” Santiago said. Spanish-language radio is a must for such marketing, she noted. To establish student-recruiting pipelines, consider making connections with trusted organizations in the community, like churches. The advice resonated for me because it echoed a lot of what I heard in developing my report on the adult student and a follow-up guide on how to start recruiting and serving that demographic. I wasn’t thinking that much about ethnicity then. Historically, the adult-learning council hasn’t had that focus either. But Santiago said this project will help shift that: “We bring the Latino lens.”

She also reminded me of the power of perceptions — and misperceptions. Many college faculty members and administrators may still believe that the majority of Latino adults are immigrants or undocumented, Santiago said. “There is still a lot of ignorance about what the population is, or isn’t.”

The self-evaluation that the 15 colleges will undergo as part of the project, using the council’s Adult Learner 360 tool, could help highlight spots where institutions might need to educate their personnel. Santiago said she hopes it also helps colleges correct the misperceptions of prospective students, like the notion “that there isn’t financial aid for adults.” (In reality, it is sometimes harder for adults to qualify, but that doesn’t mean it’s not available.)

Most colleges have let their Hispanic focus remain on younger students. “Because of where we are economically,” Santiago said, the adult Hispanic demographic “doesn’t seem like the easiest and quickest population to get.” This project, she hopes, will change that dynamic.

Clearly there’s at least some interest. While the project was designed for just 15 institutions, nearly three times that many applied to be part of it.