A new report from The Education Trust gives most states poor to failing grades when it comes to enrolling and graduating Latinos in public colleges and universities.
The Latino population in the U.S. is increasing as are the number of jobs that require a college education, but The Education Trust report finds that Latinos are underrepresented at public institutions of higher education in most states. “Broken Mirrors II: Latino Student Representation at Public State Colleges and Universities” details how states are performing and shows the gaps that need to be closed to increase the number of Latinos with college degrees. 
The report looks at 44 states (the other six states had Latino populations of under 15,000 residents between the ages of 25–64) and examines how the percentage of Latinos enrolled at public institutions in a state compares to the percentage of Latinos in that state. A key finding is that Latino students are underrepresented at public colleges and universities, especially at community and technical colleges, in 40 of the 44 states examined. In 33 of the 44 states, Latino enrollment at four-year public institutions does not reflect the state’s percentage of Latino residents.
“States have the autonomy and authority to really provide the funding and the accountability to institutions,” said Dr. Kayla Elliott, senior policy analyst for higher education at The Education Trust.
A corresponding State Equity Report Card (https://www.stateequity.org/) shows how individual states perform and compare to other states, even providing the number of Latino graduates a state needs in order to achieve proportional representation.
“Our main purpose here is to put pressure on state policy makers and leaders to provide more access to higher education for these populations and it’s also to provide tools for advocates,” said J. Oliver Schak, assistant director for higher education research and data analytics at The Education Trust and lead author on the report. “State leaders need to create the conditions for public institutions to enroll and graduate more Latinos.”
The data comes from the American Community Survey (ACS) from the Census Bureau and the timeframe examined was 2014–16.
