UT Ranks High For Latino Achievement
The University of Texas ranks among the 10 U.S. universities that grant the most degrees to Latino graduates, a new report has found.
The study, from education nonprofit Excelencia in Education, ranks UT high in terms of raw numbers of Latino graduates at all degree levels. UT is #10 for bachelor’s degrees, #8 for professional degrees, and #5 for doctoral degrees.
Latino enrollment at UT has been on the rise for decades. In 1975, just 4 percent of UT students were Latino; last year, 17.6 percent were. Hispanic* enrollment has jumped 47 percent since 2000, when the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board initiated its Closing the Gaps plan. One of its explicit goals was to increase the number of Hispanics enrolling and earning college degrees.
Kedra Ishop, UT’s vice provost and director of admissions, attributes the rising numbers to a campus-wide effort to help Latino students succeed. “The University is committed to increasing diversity in many ways—through recruitment, admissions, student support, and many other factors,” Ishop says. “For example, our regional admissions centers all over the state give students resources right in their hometowns.” A ninth regional admissions center will open soon in Laredo, Ishop says.
The demographics of UT’s student body are still a long way from reflecting those of Texas, which is 38 percent Latino. Ishop says that while demographic matching is not the University’s goal, increasing all kinds of diversity—ethnic, geographic, economic, and more—is a strong institutional priority. “We all believe there is more progress to be made, but we’ve also made quite a bit of progress so far,” Ishop says.
*Editor’s Note: For the purposes of this article, we are using the words Latino and Hispanic interchangeably. The study uses Latino, and we are abiding that when reporting on their findings. The Closing the Gaps plan uses Hispanic, and so we use that phrase when discussing its numbers.
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2 Comments
UT has an excellent approach towards Latino/Hispanic students. UT implements cultural sensitive approach from admissions to graduation. I am Latina and was surprised when turning in my college transcripts for admission to graduate school because they even accepted transcripts in Spanish! I was very impressed and knew from the beginning of what a great university UT was, I am so proud to be a Nicaraguan Longhorn!
When I entered the University of Texas in the Fall of 1970, out of approximately 39,000 total students only 250 were of Spanish surnames (this included students from Latin America). Of those 250 Spanish Surnamed students 50 were from my home town of Eagle Pass, Texas. UT was intrigued. We believe it was due to the minimum amount of racial discrimination in EP, good teachers and a community that strongly emphasized education(whether you were rich or poor, Anglo or Mexican American. Once we arrived at UT we excelled and to this day I am greatly appreciative to UT for what it did for me. Mil Gracias UT! y “Cuernalos Horns”!!!!!!!!!!!