Latinos Surpass Whites In College Enrollment For The First Time, Study Shows

ArizonaLatinos staff

Are more Latinos than ever wanting to attend college to open doors to the American Dream, or are they continuing their education because good-paying jobs are scarce out there.

The Pew Hispanic Center released a poll that found in 2012, for the first time, Latino teens passed their White counterparts in high school graduates who plan to attend a college.

The poll states that 69 percent of 2012 high school graduates who identity as Latino are enrolled full time at an institution of higher learning. This compares to 67 percent of White high school graduates. Though the margins are slim, an increase for higher education of young Latinos is positive.

 “It is possible that the rise in high school completion and college enrollment by Latino youths has been driven, at least in part, by their declining fortunes in the job market,” the report stated.

“Since the onset of the recession at the end of 2007, unemployment among Latinos ages 16 to 24 has gone up by seven percentage points, compared with a five percentage point rise among white youths. With jobs harder to find, more Latino youths may have chosen to stay in school longer.”

That’s one perspective. The other is that more Latinos understand that to take a low-paying job such as at fast-food restaurants is just wasting time, when they can stay in school and earn degrees that will result in better jobs and hundreds of thousands of dollar more income in their lifetimes.

The numbers continue a trend stared at the beginning of the 2008 recession that saw more and more Hispanic students attending colleges as the number of white students slowly declined.

Looking in greater detail at the numbers, the poll shows that the number of Hispanic high school dropouts has also declined, with only 14 percent of Hispanic 16- to 24-year-olds dropping out in 2011, half the level from 2000.

Despite such advances in overall college attendance,  Latinos still lag behind in some of the long-standing educational attainment areas;  however a rise in seeking higher level education will make more qualified workers in the future.