Running Head: HISPANIC FRIENDLY UNIVERSITIES
Hispanic Friendly Universities
Jaime J. Reyes
University of Texas at El Paso
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Abstract
The purpose of this Literature Review is to see how other sources will answer the
questions regarding minorities. Many universities feel encouraged to recruit Hispanic students
since they are a minority in their region. Other universities feel the need to boost their
recruitment funds to encourage Hispanic students. For this Literature Review we will also see
how Hispanic and American students compare academic wise in universities across the nations.
Evaluating these topics, they will eventually answer three questions that will be presented in the
beginning of this paper. By the end, this Literature Review should show how the sources that
will be presented will answer those questions with their claims.
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Hispanics
Hispanic students are a minority in our country, which is why many universities go after
Hispanics. Universities offer an abundance of tuition to Hispanics that are in regions where they
are a minority. Many schools even fund their recruitment in strategic ways to encourage
Hispanic students to attend their universities. Now for this Literature Review paper will focus on
answering the following questions:

Should universities/schools be interested in recruiting more Hispanic students?

How do Hispanic and American students compare academically across the nations
universities?

How do universities fund for the recruitment of Hispanic students?
Regarding secondary sources, universities across the nation encourage Hispanic students to
attend their campuses. After viewing many sources/surveys, most of them had great claims
regarding these questions.
Should universities/schools be interested in recruiting more Hispanic students?
Many universities encourage Hispanic students to attend their school. Patrica
Guadeloupe’s (2007) web article includes information and numbers of Hispanics students that
are currently attending nation wide schools. Guadeloupe (2007) presents the ten universities that
placed high on education institutions for Hispanic (p. 22). She shows the percentage of Hispanic
students that attend those universities. In other words, just like these schools encourage
Hispanics to attending their school, they invest in recruiting Hispanics.
Universities are interested in male and female Hispanics. In Michelle Madsen Camacho’s
(2013) claim in her book (Latinas in Engineering) is to encourage universities to invest
recruitment, not only for Hispanics but also for Hispanic women. She explains how women are a
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minority in college and how there is even a lower percentage of Hispanic women. She shows
data of how Hispanic women make great doctors/engineers, and proposes why universities
should found recruitment for Hispanic women since they are a minority. Michelle (2013)
explains how, Hispanics are determined to have the greatest impact in the engineering field, and
how they are America’s largest minority, which is why she purposely speaks towards universities
to encourage Hispanics to attend their schools.
According to Rebecca Prinster (2014), ten universities were selected (out of fifty) nation
wide to recruit minorities, Hispanics being one of them. The main point of this process was to
recruit minority men, “Changing the Demographic Makeup of the Teaching Workforce,” (R.
Prinster, 2014, p. 4) is the name of the program. These universities feel the need to seek out to
minority students and offer them an education for teaching in this case. They want to increase the
number of Hispanics in their regions by using CDMTW (Changing the Demographic Makeup of
the Teaching Workforce).
An In Service article that was written by Lekan Oguntoyinbo (2013) speaks about how
Notre Dame in Namur, and other catholic universities are reaching out to Hispanics students.
Lekan (2013) explains how “reaching out to the growing population of Hispanic students may be
the best answer for some colleges survival.” (L. Oguntoyinbo, 2013, p. 9) Western universities
are now in need of the recruitment of Hispanic students, Hispanics are a fast growing population,
and universities like Notre Dame are taking advantage of it. In 2007, nearly seventeen percent of
the students that enrolled to Notre Dame were Hispanics. Now there is an accumulation of nearly
twenty-nine percent students enrolled that are Hispanics. A Notre Dame professor made a study
where he stated that, most of this nations colleges/universities will be dominated by Hispanics by
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2050 (Dr. Marybeth Gasman, 2013, p. 10). In other words, Hispanics will eventually over grow
other ethnicities within the next decades according to Dr. Marybeth.
A Hispanic student named Santiago Deborah (2011) wrote an article regarding his
experiences in college. He explains how he is Latino and how it was really hard to move away
from his family. He explains how universities like UTEP (The University of Texas at El Paso)
recognized that it is difficult to move far from your family. Which is why these universities have
a program where they offer the students parents orientation of the university to feel more
comfortable of their child moving away. Universities that follow this strategy will most likely
recruit more Hispanic students because of the culture they have. Hispanic kids/parents have a
tight bond within each other, which is why introducing this to Hispanic parents makes it easier to
enroll students to their universities.
How do universities fund for the recruitment of Hispanic students?
After reading a broad variety of articles regarding how school fund their recruitment,
many colleges/universities fun their recruitment for Hispanic students differently. In IIE
Solutions, they present an article of how universities invest in recruitment and where their money
comes from. Many universities fund their recruitment from foundations, in IIE solutions article,
the “Goizueta Foundation” donated $4.25 million in efforts to boost recruitment for Georgia
tech. IIE shows how Georgia Tech funds their recruitment for Hispanic students. They also show
how big label companies like Coca-Cola fund and give universities money to boost their
recruitment. Of course, this is just the recruitment strategy of this particular university, they’re
many other strategies.
In Joseph Finora’s (2006) article, he interviews a former school director for FDU
(Fairleigh Dickinson University) Dr. Alfredo Tan. Joseph presents a direct quote from Dr.
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Alfredo saying, "We're very concerned about the under- representation of minorities and women
in engineering," said Dr. Alfredo Tan, school director. "Students in our region can now be
exposed to new engineering technologies, computer sciences, and math initiatives that will
encourage them to pursue careers in these fields." (J. Finora, 2006, p.54). Stating this, Dr.
Alfredo shows his direct interest fro minorities in this nation, he goes on by saying that Rutgers
engineering school also offers scholarships to minorities across the nation (J. Finora,2006, p.54).
In this case, Dr. Alfredo shows why he wants to encourage Hispanic students to attend FDU and
how they plan to fund their tuition/recruitment.
All sorts of universities recruit Hispanics, in this article that was written by Beckie
Supiano (2010), introduces how now Christian Universities are looking for Hispanics to attend
their universities. Beckie (2010) explains how “It seems like every college is working to recruit
more Hispanic students. And with good reason: Colleges are all looking at the same
demographic projections.” (B. Supiano, 2010, paragraph 1). Beckie (2010) goes on by saying
how many universities are very stereotypical towards minorities, and how they are working on a
group called the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference to encourage other
universities to over come stereotypes against Hispanics. These Christian Colleges go after
Hispanics to gain additional federal money for the recruitment of Hispanic students.
Another article regarding Notre Dame, written by Ann Schnoebelen (2013), explains how
Notre Dame became a Hispanic-Serving Institution. Ann (2013) interviewed the president from
Notre Dame where he explains how their institution is dedicated in an all-time-high enrollment
for Hispanics. Their main goal is to enroll as many Hispanics to make their university grow
academic and populations wise. Ann (2013) also includes how they will fund the recruitment of
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Hispanics. The university receives federal grants to recruit Hispanics, the more the Hispanics
they enroll the more federal money they gather.
Hispanics are now becoming the nations largest minority (C. Sturdivant, 2013, p.15)
Christina (2013) states in the beginning of her article. Because Hispanics are growing so vast,
universities should take advantage of recruiting Hispanic students. Christina (2013) conducted
several interviews in Southern Texas Colleges where she asked presidents from certain
universities what they think about the enrollment of Hispanics. One of the presidents answers
was “Our goal was to create a college-going culture in our region” (C. Sturdivant, 2013, p.15).
The president’s intention for this university is to make it as friendly as possible for Hispanic
students who are new to the region. Motivating them by showing them how the campus is
friendly and how they will blend in to the campus.
How do Hispanic and American students compare academically across the nations
universities?
The following two charts (Figure 1 and 2) show how Hispanics and other ethnicities
stand academic wise across the nation. Figure 1 shows how Hispanics stand with other
ethnicities like Whites, Blacks, Asians, and American Indians. It shows a percentage of how
many students graduate in 4 years or in 6 years. These numbers are graduation rates across the
state of New York colleges, from a recent study in 2010. Looking at the chart, Hispanics are a
minority, which explains why the numbers are low when it comes to this certain location. (New
York)
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Figure 1 (Acquired from
http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/state/#state=ny&sector=public_four )
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Figure 2 (Acquired from UTEP’s Encore database)
In Figure 2, the chart mainly concentrates on Hispanic students that have graduated with
a master’s in engineering within forty-seven universities/colleges across the nation. This study
was performed recently in September 2014, and it shows the total amount of men and women
that have graduated in 2012-2013. By looking at the numbers we can see some differences
between the universities, some are located in the east and some on the west of the country.
Meaning that Hispanics are recruited and attend universities everywhere around the nation.
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Comparing both of these ethnicities, Lisa Y. Flores (2013) as well as her colleges
conducted a research regarding this topic. They acquired data from the 1990’s to present day in
order to compare Hispanics and American engineering students academic wise. In their research
they also compared Hispanic women and American women. In the end they come to the
conclusion where Hispanic and American students make great engineers. The graduating
percentages of both ethnicities were really high but since Hispanics are a minority, they do not
have much of an advantage. They state the following by saying that the outcome expectations,
and interests are related to Hispanics and White and men and women engineering graduates, (L.
Flores, 2013, p. 90) meaning that the comparisons between both ethnicities are really close
academic wise.
A Turning Point (2014) article post made headline news at the US Census Bureau of how
Hispanics enrollment bettered. The cover of the news article is “Hispanic enrollment rates
surpass those of white peers” , colleges are boosting efforts to recruit Hispanics (M. Valbrun,
2014, p.5), after reading the entire article, the main claim was how Hispanic students have
surpassed American students academic wise in large universities. It also explains how states like
Texas, California, and Arizona that have large and increasing Hispanic populations are also
boosting their recruitment and retention efforts. They have recruited thousands within Hispanic
race to attend their state universities. These states show an abundance of Hispanic students and
they see a future within them, which is why they encourage them to attend their schools.
Conclusion
In conclusion, these sources helped answer the Literature Review questions with their
main claims. Hispanics, being a minority in this nation, will soon become a major ethnicity that
will eventually over populate any other race in this country. Comparing Hispanics to other
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ethnicities, had many similarities and differences, but in the end they were both very similar
academic wise. Meaning that Hispanics are being encouraged by universities nation wide to
make the university grow academic and population wise.
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References
Camacho, M. M., Lord, S. M., & Ebooks Corporation. (2013). The borderlands of education.
Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman &
Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.UTEP.eblib.com/
EBLWeb/patron/?target=patron&extendedid=P_1203872_0
Finora, J.(2006) Northeastern schools for hispanic engineering students.
Flores, L. Y., Navarro, R. L., Hang Shim Lee, Addae, D. A., Gonzalez, R., Luna, L. L., . . .
Mitchell, M. (2013) Academic satisfaction among Latino/a and white men and women
engineering students.
Guadeloupe, P. (2007) So you want to be an engineer:.
IIE Solutions (2001) Making engineering attractive to hispanic students.
Oguntoyinbo, L. (2013) In service. Article
Prinster, R. (2014) 10 education schools selected to improve recruitment of minority men.
SANTIAGO, D. A. (2011) All together: The role of latino families in higher education.
SCHNOEBELEN, A. (2013) Why one university became a hispanic-serving institution.
Sturdivant, C. (2013) Leading latinos.
SUPIANO, B. (2010) Christian colleges seek more hispanics.
The University of Texas of at El Paso Ebsco Database was utilized (Library)
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The University of Texas of at El Paso Encore Database was utilized (Library)
Figure 1 chart: New York Public Colleges,
http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/state/#state=ny&sector=public_four )
Figure 2 chart: The top hispanic degree producers.
VALBRUN, M. (2014) Turning point.
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