Colleges will feel the impact of that immediately — and in years to come.
Latinos “have been driving the enrollment growth and the completion growth in the country,” says Deborah Santiago, the co-founder and chief executive of Excelencia in Education.
But now, as Santiago told me, many of those students could find themselves unable to start or continue their college education. That could be because their parents have lost jobs, or they themselves have, since more than 60 percent of Hispanic students typically work while enrolled. The population tends to work disproportionately in restaurants, hotels, and other service and hospitality sectors that have been shuttered because of the pandemic.
Latino students are also more likely to live in multigenerational homes, and even if they haven’t lost their jobs, they might hesitate to go to work to pay for college, for fear of infecting their families, Santiago noted, “especially their grandparents.”
The even crueler side of this, she said, is that the expected slowdown in college enrollment comes “at a time when Latinos are more and more ready to go.” On top of that, along with Asian Americans, they are the most likely to say that, if they lose their job because of Covid-19, they would need additional training or education to find another with the same wages, according to a recent Strada Consumer Insights Center poll.
Santiago believes Latinos still will enroll in the fall, but “it will not be the numbers that it could be.”
We chatted last week so she could put what she calls the “Latino lens” on the pandemic. She also was one of the last people I interviewed Before Covid, for a newsletter I was going to write about ways to make campuses more welcoming. Some of her advice then still applies now, such as teaching professors how to pronounce common Latino names (it’s Hey-zoos, not Jeez-us), and improving outreach to family members.
A few other considerations are especially relevant now: paying attention to food, housing, and other basic needs; ensuring that all students have adequate technology and Wi-Fi access off campus; and beefing up advising and other supports to help them manage the added stresses.
That will be a lot easier said than done. Two out of three Latino students attend one of the nation’s 539 Hispanic-serving institutions, known as HSIs (those where at least a quarter of the full-time-equivalent undergraduate enrollment is Hispanic). All but 15 percent of those colleges are public, and while they might not be facing the same existential threat as many small private colleges, including several historically black institutions, they are likely to see significant state budget cuts.
Many HSIs also didn’t fare that well with the federal Cares Act either, because as my colleague Eric Kelderman reported, the law’s funding formula gave short shrift to part-time students. Yes, Latino students are disproportionately part-time students as well.
Despite all of that, Santiago is determined to avoid pessimism. “We have more experience doing a lot with less,” she said of HSIs. She’s already heard from institutions looking to adapt the curriculum to changing circumstances, including Florida International University, which is adding Covid-19 safety training to its hospitality courses.
While she does worry that some institutions will see the tough times ahead as a reason to spend less time (and money) in trying to better serve Latino students, she argues that such an approach would be shortsighted, especially considering national demographic trends. “Serving Hispanics,” she said, “is going to be the solution going forward.”
More on virtual internships.
Several readers responded to last week’s newsletter on the value of virtual internships at a time when Covid-19 makes in-person versions all but impossible. And a few of you noted new efforts already underway.
Wake Forest University has developed a “virtual summer” internship program through its Office of Civic & Community Engagement. American University, which converted its usual Washington, D.C., spring and summer internships into virtual ones, plans to do the same for the fall. The Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars also shifted to a virtual model for placements usually here in D.C.
It’s nice to see more than a “show must go on” imperative driving those moves. That’s clearly the case for the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty, a group of 25 colleges that together sends about 130 students to intern at direct-service agencies in about 20 cities each summer. This year it is including more academic programming and fewer work hours in the virtual format.
Organizers wanted to preserve students’ chance to engage, Stephanie Rolph, the consortium’s academic director, said in an email to me. “As an organization with a mission to educate and empower toward the disruption of poverty, we couldn’t NOT be in this space during this time of crisis when so many of our partners are facing higher demands.”
As I thought more about virtual internships — and heard from more of you — I realized that what’s still missing here is something like a network of networks: a way to connect all of these disparate projects, the community of prospective interns, and potential virtual-internship providers. There’s still time. Anyone got an idea for filling that gap?
Please join me for a virtual forum on Thursday on how colleges and employers can work better together.
Graduates are entering an economy in turmoil. If ever there was a time for stronger connections between higher education and employers, this is it. What are the new demands of this evolving labor market? What are the skills graduates need now? What can college leaders, professors, policy makers, and, yes, employers do to help students equip themselves for careers in this uncertain future?
Those are not easy questions to answer, but I’ve enlisted a panel with a rich mix of higher-ed experience to try. We’ll be talking through these topics and more, and taking your questions, on Thursday, May 20, at 2 p.m., Eastern time, with Michael Collins, vice president at Jobs for the Future; Farouk Dey, vice provost for integrative learning and life design at the Johns Hopkins University; and Kelli K. Smith, assistant vice president for student success at Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York.
Sign up here to view the program live, or watch later on demand.
Final thoughts.
Most colleges have transitioned from Zoom classes to Zoom commencements. My offering this week doesn’t have a higher-ed tie-in, but among the many clever parodies and memes on how we’ve adapted to virtual-conferencing culture, this one by a BBC sports commentator really tickled me. (As my friends will attest, I’m not really a “dog person,” but I am a sucker for that dry British wit.)
Memorial Day weekend is upon us, and I know we’re all getting a bit antsy by now, but the virus seems to have more staying power than some of the American populace has patience. So to the degree possible, I hope you’re able to #StayAtHome, wear a mask when you’re not, and still stay safe, sane, and humane.
Got a tip you’d like to share or a question you’d like me to answer? Let me know, at goldie@chronicle.com. If you want to follow me on Twitter, @GoldieStandard is my handle.
