WASHINGTON – The number of institutions officially recognized by the federal government as “Hispanic serving” is set to rise dramatically in the coming years, according to a comprehensive study of Latino enrollment in higher education.
In the 1980s, the designation Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) was created by the federal government to directfunding to nonprofit colleges where at least 25 percent of the full-time-equivalent students are Latino. On Thursday, Excelencia in Education, an advocacy group for Latino students, released a report identifying the growing number of institutions that do not meet the HSI enrollment threshold of 25 percent but that fit its definition of “emerging HSIs” – meaning that they “are within the critical mass range of 15-24 percent and have the potential to become HSIs in the next few years.”
Using data federal data from 2006-7, the report states that there were, at that point, 265 HSIs; another 176 institutions were on the brink of becoming HSIs and met its definition of “emerging.”
“Emerging” HSIs were located in 20 states. The highest concentration of these institutions was in California, which had 52, followed by Texas, which had 42. Still, Deborah Santiago, the report's author and vice president for policy and research at Excelencia, said at a discussion accompanying the report’s release on Capitol Hill that these institutions are “not just in those places where we expect to see Latinos.” For instance, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Oregon and Utah are among the states that had one such institution.