'Continuamos Juntos'--Moving Forward Together: Lessons on Advancing Latino Success from California's LATIDO Project

N

31

College Futures Foundation
James Irvine Foundation

Administrators; Policymakers; Community

Hispanic American Students; Graduation Rate; College Graduates; Racial Composition; Undergraduate Students; Community Colleges; Public Colleges; Success; Culturally Relevant Education; At Risk Students; College Transfer Students; Two Year College Students; Intervention; Administrator Attitudes; College Faculty; Teacher Attitudes; Student Attitudes; Program Effectiveness; Partnerships in Education

Latinos are the fastest growing college population in California, but less than one-quarter of all Latino adults in the state earn a college degree. To reverse this trend, both the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office and the California State University (CSU) Office of the Chancellor launched new initiatives in 2017 to raise Latino graduation rates by 2022 and 2025, respectively. Key players in these efforts are the state's Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), which are public, degree-granting institutions that enroll the equivalent of at least 25 percent fulltime Latino undergraduates in their overall student population. California has the country's highest concentration of HSIs, with 96 of its 144 community colleges and 21 of its 23 CSU campuses. The state provides a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities of advancing the higher education prospects of this thriving population. In 2017, MDRC launched the Latino Academic Transfer and Institutional Degree Opportunities (LATIDO) study in collaboration with the community college chancellor's office to investigate how California HSI's are supporting undergraduate Latino students. The work began with a roundtable discussion that included scholars, policymakers, and practitioners. This led to the evaluation of Latino education programs at five HSIs: CSU Dominguez Hills, CSU Fresno, Hartnell College, Mount San Antonio College, and San Bernardino Valley College. This report begins with an overview of the LATIDO study and the five colleges that were selected as case study sites followed by a brief discussion of the methodology for the study. The report then lays out crosscutting findings that apply to each of the colleges under study. It ends with recommendations for university administrators, lawmakers, and advocates regarding best practices and policies for advancing the college outcomes of Latino students in California, and beyond. [The report was written with Jessica Taketa and Chase Johnson. Additional funding by the Crimsonbridge Foundation.]

ERIC

2019

ED595283