MIAMI — More Latinos than ever are choosing to attend four-year universities in the U.S., according to an analysis released Friday by the Pew Research Center. However, two-year colleges registered a recent decline in enrollment.
A whopping 2.4 million Latinos enrolled at four-year post-secondary institutions in 2020, compared to 620,000 in 2000 — that’s a 287% increase in 20 years. By comparison, overall student enrollment at four-year institutions in the U.S. grew only by 50% during that time, the Pew study states.
Just from 2019 to 2020, enrollment at these four-year schools rose by about 140,000 students, or 6%, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
The opposite occurred at two-year colleges, where enrollment plunged by about 230,000 students, or 15%, from 2019 to 2020.
For this study, Pew used data from the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, and the Census Bureau’s 2021 Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement, or IPUMS. Pew also surveyed 9,676 U.S. adults between Oct. 18 and Oct. 42 in 2021.
NCES hasn’t published information for the fall 2021 enrollment.
But the study said: “It appears that this trend continued into fall 2021, as there was a decline in the number of higher education institutions where Hispanics make up at least 25% of students — known as Hispanic-Serving Institutions — from 569 in fall 2020 to 559 in fall 2021.”
The Pew study released Friday showed that overall more Latinos are enrolling in college than in decades past.
In 1980, about 470,000 Latinos enrolled at higher education institutions, accounting for 4% of all students in the U.S. That figure skyrocketed to 3.7 million Latinos enrolled in 2020, or 20% of all students.
The downside is that despite the enrollment surge, “relatively small shares of young Hispanics are enrolled in college or have obtained a bachelor’s degree,” the study reads.
In 2021, about 32% of Latinos ages 18 to 24 were enrolled at least part-time in college, a similar share to Black Americans — 33% — and a lower share than among white adults — 37% — and Asian adults — 58%.
Latinos who didn’t enroll or didn’t finish their degree listed needing to work to support family members and not being able to afford as the most common among reasons why not, according to an October 2021 Pew Research Center survey.
