How Can Colleges Close the Latino Graduation Gap?

While this knowledge is just not precisely constructive, Labandera says a vibrant spot is that it reveals that alternatives exist for increased schooling establishments to achieve out and assist college students who began however haven’t completed their levels.

“The higher education system was created for a more traditional student that finishes an associate degree in two years and or a bachelor’s degree in four, that goes full-time, that starts right after high school,” Labandera explains. “Increasingly our Latino community doesn’t really look like [that]. That’s why we use that term ‘post-traditional’ and specifically don’t say ‘non-traditional’ — because it has a bit more of a negative connotation, or it makes Latinos and students like them kind of the ‘other,’ and we sort of flip that narrative.”

Colleges and universities that work with Exelencia in Education to earn the group’s “seal of excelencia” — that means the establishment has proven by way of knowledge that it’s a spot the place Latino college students are supported — are altering their campus cultures to be extra versatile to college students’ wants, Labandera says. For instance, some are overlaying the value of scholars’ primary wants like well being care or housing along with tuition and costs.

“That’s how these institutions are learning to look at it as, ‘These students already come to our campuses with assets with skill sets. We need to meet them where they are,’” Labandera says. “Not asking students to change who they are, to fit a mold, but rather, ‘How can, as the institution, we serve you holistically?’”