Educational outcomes differ between native-born and immigrant Latinos and between Latinos and other racial and ethnic groups. Measuring those differences and the factors that produce them are critical to understanding the Latino future. The Center’s research focuses on trends in school enrollment and educational attainment.
Also see our statistical portraits, state and county databases, demographic profiles and Census 2010 tables for data on the characteristics of the Latino and foreign-born populations in the United States.
Driven by a single-year surge of 24% in Hispanic enrollment, the number of 18- to 24-year-olds attending college in the United States hit an all-time high of 12.2 million in October 2010.
Just one-in-ten Hispanic high school drop-outs has a General Educational Development (GED) credential, widely regarded as the best “second chance” pathway to college, vocational training and military service for adults who do not graduate high school.
A Pew Hispanic Center report based on a new nationwide survey of Latino youths and on analyses of government data examines the values, attitudes, experiences and self-identity of this generation as it comes of age in America.
Nearly nine-in-ten (89%) Latino young adults ages 16 to 25 say that a college education is important for success in life, yet only about half that number-48%-say that they themselves plan to get a college degree.
Young Latino adults in the United States are more likely to be in school or the work force now than their counterparts were in previous generations.
The student population of America’s suburban public schools has shot up by 3.4 million in the past decade and a half, and virtually all of this increase (99%) has been due to the enrollment of new Latino, black, and Asian students.
The number of Hispanic students in the nation’s public schools nearly doubled from 1990 to 2006, accounting for 60% of the total growth in public school enrollments over that period.
Students designated as English language learners (ELL) tend to go to public schools that have low standardized test scores.
The 5-4 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in June to strike down school desegregation plans in Seattle and Louisville has focused public attention on the degree of racial and ethnic integration in the nation’s 93,845 public schools.
As Congress considers the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law an analysis of recent data from standardized testing around the country shows that the fast growing number of students designated as English language learners are among those farthest behind.
Since the mid-1990s, two trends have transformed the landscape of American public education: Enrollment has increased because of the growth of the Hispanic population, and the number of schools has also increased.
A report on high school enrollment points to the importance of schooling abroad in understanding the dropout problem for immigrant teens, finding that those teens have often fallen behind in their education before reaching the United States.
A report on the characteristics of high schools attended by different racial and ethnic groups finds that Hispanic teens are more likely than blacks and whites to attend the nation’s largest public high schools.
In addition to longstanding concerns over high school completion, policymakers are increasingly focused on disparities in outcomes between Hispanic and white college students.
The places Latinos live, the jobs they hold, the schooling they complete, the languages they speak, even their attitudes on key political and social issues, are all in flux.
The purpose of this study is to describe federal legislation and programs that support higher education and to assess Latino participation in these programs. While there are many programs at the state, institutional, and community levels that facilitate access to higher education for Latinos, the Higher Education Act (HEA), due for reauthorization this year, is the main policy vehicle at the federal level for postsecondary education programs. These programs provide concrete examples of educational activities that can inform–and be informed by–local activities and programs to facilitate Latino student access, persistence, and completion of higher education. A series of developments in the costs and financing of colleges and universities set the context for HEA reauthorization.
This study was conducted by the Educational Policy Institute through a grant from the Pew Hispanic Center to provide the most up-to-date analysis of Latino achievement through postsecondary education. The study analyses the latest installment of the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS), begun in 1988 with eighth grade students and followed up several times, with the last follow-up survey in 2000: eight years after scheduled high school graduation.
This new study from the Pew Hispanic Center that finds that the white/Latino gap in finishing college is larger than the high school completion gap. The study reveals that Latino undergraduates are at a disadvantage in competing for college degrees because of two important factors: many Hispanic undergraduates disproportionately enroll on campuses that have low bachelor's degree completion rates, and they have different experiences than white students even when they enroll on the same campuses.
This is a comprehensive survey of Latino attitudes toward education, public schools and a variety of education issues, including the No Child Left Behind Act.
National Survey of Latinos: Education is a new comprehensive survey of Latino attitudes toward education, public schools and a variety of education issues, including the No Child Left Behind Act. This national survey is released against the backdrop of major changes in the nation’s K-12 system as states and school districts apply sweeping new federal requirements. Conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation, the survey includes substantial comparison samples of whites and African Americans.
High school dropout rates are a key performance measure for the American education system. This report shows that the standard method for calculating the dropout rate leads to a distorted picture of the status of Hispanic students in U.S. schools.
It is a commonplace claim that the education level of the Latino immigrant population is continually falling behind that of the U.S.-born population. However, the Pew Hispanic Center finds that the educational profile of the adult population of foreign-born Latinos has improved significantly during the past three decades. These gains, however, have not yet produced a notable convergence with the level of education in the native-born U.S. population. During the period 1970 to 2000 the native-born population also experienced improvements of education that outpaced the progress among Latino immigrants. Nonetheless, the trends identified in this report suggest that the gap between immigrants and natives will narrow in the future.
This report shows that by some measures a greater share of Latinos are attending college classes than non-Hispanic whites, and yet they lag every other population group in attaining college degrees, especially bachelor’s degrees. A detailed examination of data for enrollment shows a high propensity among Latino high school graduates to pursue post-secondary studies. However, most are pursuing paths associated with lower chances of attaining a bachelor’s degree. Many are enrolled in community colleges, many also only attend school part-time and others delay or prolong their college education into their mid-20s and beyond. These findings clearly show that large numbers of Latinos finish their secondary schooling and try to extend their education but fail to earn a degree.
The Latino labor force is experiencing a major generational shift as increasing numbers of today’s young native-born Latino Americans become workers. This report describes the wage, employment outcomes, and labor market attachment of Latino adults by age and generation during the economic expansion of the late 1990s.
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