SAN DIEGO—The state of Hispanic Serving Institutions is strong, says the president of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), who kicked off the organization's 36th annual conference this weekend.
It’s the first in-person gathering of HACU since 2019 and more than 2,500 students, faculty, staff, and policymakers gathered here to share best practices and to strategize on how best to strengthen the success of Latino students and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) amid the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted higher education over the past few years.
"There was a significant drop in enrollment among many HSIs," said Dr. Antonio R. Flores, who has led the association for the last 26 years. "We are now in a recovery mode. I would hope in the next 2-3 years, we will get back to where we were performing before the pandemic."
Dr. Antonio R. Flores, president of HACU
Still, the challenges remain.
In his opening remarks to kick off the conference, Flores noted that federal funding for HSIs remain remarkably low, despite their ongoing growth over the past decade.
