WASHINGTON — Financial pressures, not a lack of aspiration, are pushing young Latinos to abandon higher education, according to a national survey released Wednesday.
Almost 90 percent of Latinos surveyed by the Pew Hispanic Center said attending college is important to get ahead, a belief held by only 74 percent of the general population.
But three out of four Latinos surveyed in the 16-to-25-year-old age group said financial obstacles are getting in the way of their education.
"Far and away, it's the reason" for Latinos to stop attending college, said Mark Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center and author of the survey. "Latinos need to support their families."
Lopez is attending a national conference in Washington on Educating Latino Children, where the results of the survey were first unveiled.
The national survey of Latinos was conducted between Aug. 9 and Sept. 16 and garnered 2,012 responses — 1,240 of them from individuals ages 6 to 26, and 772 older than 26.
"This is really important information for everyone to have, not only in colleges but also in the general public," Hartnell College spokeswoman Terri Pyer said. "It paints a very different picture of the obstacles we face in trying to improve the college-going rate of folks in our community from the one that is generally espoused."
The survey found Latinos valued education more than the general population, and valued getting a college education more than getting a full-time job.
"It isn't very surprising to those of us working with Latinos for some time," said Andrew Fuligni, co-director of the Family Research Consortium at the University of California-Los Angeles. "It shows quite a bit in our studies: Latinos are just as, if not more, motivated than their European peers."
The results echo findings by Carola Suarez-Orozco, professor of applied psychology and co-director of immigration studies at New York University. Suarez-Orozco found that about 50 percent of Latinos who go to college attend a community college, but only about 10 percent graduate.
"A few Latinos don't feel they belong," Suarez-Orozco said at the conference. "They still don't have the social networks. If you are a third-generation college student, you know how to play the game."
But while a higher percentage of Latinos feel a college education is necessary, only 48 percent of Latinos between 18 and 25 said they are planning to get a four-year degree. Among the general population, 60 percent said they plan to get a bachelor's degree.
That's what Lopez calls the "aspiration gap." It's reflected in the fact that only 24 percent of young Latinos are enrolled in college, compared with 34 percent of the general population, according to the Census Bureau.
The study confirms what Philip Tabera, professor of Chicano and Latino studies at San Jose State University, has observed in the past few months: Higher education is slipping from students' hands.
"It's getting worse, especially for Latinas," Tabera said. "There are more women than men who begin college, but they drop out. The problem for a large number is in our own CSU system — for increasing fees, putting caps on classes. They can't get financial aid. You're seeing a lot of students working full time and part time and going to school at the same time. Then the cost of books is huge, the cost of housing. It's so difficult for kids to go to school nowadays."
The implications of the survey's results pose a challenge not just for Monterey County, where 50 percent of the population is of Latino origin, but for California and the country, where Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the population.
"We're facing a societal dilemma," said Suarez-Orozco. "These students are highly motivated, and yet there's the achievement gap."
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