Study Explores Latino Students’ College Choices

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) are defined as public or nonprofit higher education institutions, usually with open admission, at which at least 25 percent of full-time undergraduates are Hispanic. About half of the Latino college students in the United States attend an HSI. These institutions are classified not by a specific mission to educate Hispanic students, but by their enrollment demographics. In an effort to better understand why Latino students choose such schools, the nonprofit policy group Excelencia in Education conducted a qualitative focus-group-based study to investigate students’ college choices. The study, Choosing HSIs: A Closer Look at Latino Students’ College Choices, found that Latino students are not driven by the conventional wisdom that a student will enroll in the most selective institution to which he or she is accepted. Instead, Latino students make higher education decisions based on cost, proximity to home, and the friendliness and accessibility of a campus. Further, HSI students are confident that the quality of their education depends more on their own effort and motivation than the prestige of their institution.

The study involved focus groups and interviews with 103 students at six HSIs in three states. A majority of each focus group’s participants were “high achieving” students who had high school GPAs of at least 3.1 and who could have attended a more selective college than the one they chose. Researchers also separately interviewed thirty-five Latino students who graduated from non-HSI higher education institutions.

FINDINGS

Cost and Financial Aid

1. Students at HSIs tend to make college choices based on the “sticker price” of a particular school—tuition and fees—without factoring in financial aid.
2. Students at HSIs were more likely than their Latino peers at other schools to either not apply for financial aid or not accept it.
3. Students who did accept financial aid tended to only accept grants—not loans.

Proximity to Home

• A majority of students at HSIs reported choosing their institution because of its proximity to home—either because of family responsibilities, work responsibilities, or both.
• Most students at HSIs lived at home with their parents or family, and were not prepared to move to an unfamiliar city just to attend college when there were multiple local college options.
  

Accessibility

• Commute time and parking were important considerations for Latino students. Many focus-group participants indicated they chose their institution at least partially based on ample parking and an easy commute between home and work.
• Focus-group participants indicated that “small size,” a “familiar” setting, and “approachable” professors helped influence their decisions to attend their HSI.

The entire study is available for download from Excelencia in Education.

DID YOU KNOW?

• HSIs represent only 2 percent of four-year degree-granting institutions in the United States, yet they awarded 40 percent of the bachelor’s degrees earned by Latinos in 2003-04.

• Latino students who did not choose HSIs cited institutional prestige, specific academic programs, and availability of financial aid as the major factors influencing their college choice.

• Nearly all the study participants enrolled in Hispanic-Serving Institutions did not realize their school was an HSI.