Only Half of All Latino Students Graduate From College. So What Are Texas Schools Doing to Help?

More Latinos are going to college than ever, but only about half of them earn a bachelor’s degree.Angelica Sanjuan Bermudez, a junior at the University of Texas at Dallas, says she understands why it’s a challenge for many students. She struggled at first.The mountain of schoolwork was overwhelming. So on some days, she gave in to her newfound freedom to have lunch with friends or catch an event on campus rather than facing assignments that were stressing her out. Of course, that meant the biomedical engineering major soon fell behind and need to scramble to catch up.“I had these new responsibilities and freedom and college pressure,” Bermudez said. “It was difficult to navigate it all at once.”A new report by The Education Trust found that despite a dramatic increase in enrollment, schools need to redouble efforts to get more students like Bermudez through graduation. In 2015, the graduation rate for Latino students was 53.6 percent, which was 10 percentage points behind white students at four-year colleges and universities, according to the national nonprofit group.Enrollment for Latino students in public and private colleges nearly tripled from 1.3 million in 1999 to 3.6 million last year, according to the Pew Research Center.  Continue reading...