Latino College Graduation Rates Surging But Still Behind Other Ethnic Groups, Reports Pew Study

A new analysis of US Census data carried out by the Pew Center shows that even as the numbers of Latinos who enroll in college continues to surge, the proportion of Hispanics who have a bachelors' degree still lags behind that of other ethnic groups in the United States. But the study also indicated the extent to which this is the case varies quite drastically from one state to the next. In the states where Latinos comprise the largest share of the population, fewer of them have a college education.

Last year, the Pew Center found that Hispanics made up the largest minority group on college campuses for the first time in 2011, when they were 16.5 percent of all college enrollments. But even as their numbers grow in classrooms across the United States, only 13.4 percent of Latino adults nationally have a bachelor's degree - compared to 32 percent of whites, 50 percent of Asians and 19 percent of blacks. The disparity is especially marked in California and Texas - states with the highest and second highest rates of Latinos in the population, respectively. In California, 38 percent of the state's population is Hispanic; by itself, its Hispanic population makes up 27.7 percent of that of the entire nation. Yet only one-in-ten (10.7 percent) Latino adults there have a college degree. In Texas, Hispanics make up 38 percent of the population, too, but only 12 percent of them have graduated from college.

The rest of the top five states with the highest percentage of Hispanics are Florida, New York and Illinois. Only the first two have college degree-attainment rates above the national Hispanic average, according to the Pew Center. The think tank notes that in Florida, where 20.4 percent of Hispanic adults have a college degree, the Hispanic population is unusually diverse, with high numbers of immigrants from Cuba, Colombia and Venezuela as well as from Mexico and other countries in Central and South America which are often senders of immigrants. Another group that is growing in population, Puerto Ricans, come from a territory which is one of the most high-achieving in college-attainment rates. Their island is home to about four million Latinos, of which 23.3 percent of adults ages 25 and older have a college degree. That puts Puerto Rico ahead of every state except Virginia and the District of Columbia, where 24.1 percent and 36.2 percent of the Hispanic population has a bachelor's degree, respectively.

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