Journal of Hispanic Higher
Education
http://jhh.sagepub.com
Latino Access to College: Actualizing the Promise and Potential of K-16
Partnerships
Maricela Oliva
Journal of Hispanic Higher Education 2008; 7; 119
DOI: 10.1177/1538192707313943
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Latino Access to College:
Actualizing the Promise
and Potential of K-16 Partnerships
Journal of Hispanic
Higher Education
Volume 7 Number 2
April 2008 119-130
© 2008 Sage Publications
10.1177/1538192707313943
http://jhh.sagepub.com
hosted at
http://online.sagepub.com
Maricela Oliva
University of Texas at San Antonio
Abstract: The article discusses a policy trend for stronger coordination between K-12
and postsecondary education levels. Using Texas as an illustrative case, remedying
Latino underrepresentation in college is described as a rationale for enacting crosswalks between K-12 and higher education. The author concludes that the work and
training of postsecondary educators must evolve to incorporate a K-16 mind-set training. Doing so would better position educators to work closely with schools and families
to improve college access and success.
Resumen: Este manuscrito discute una tendencia para establecer una política de
coordinación fuerte entre K-12 y los niveles de educación superior. Usando a Texas
como un ejemplo, cambiar la poca representación en la universidad de estudiantes
Latinos se describe como un razonamiento para realizar el cruce de caminos entre K-12
y la educación superior. El autor concluye que el trabajo de educadores de educación
superior debe evolucionar e incorporar un entrenamiento inclusivo de K-16. El hacer
esto ayudará a los educadores a trabajar cercanamente con escuelas y familias a mejorar
acceso y éxito universitario.
Keywords: Latino; college access; K-16; policy; higher education training
State and institutional policies continue to reflect a significant separation between
K-12 and postsecondary education. The current organization of secondary schools and
postsecondary institutions is such that communication and information dissemination
between levels are often difficult . . . Also, policies across the segments, particularly
those concerning the transition from high school graduation to college admission, are
fragmented and confusing. (Kirst & Bracco, 2004, p. 3)
T
he sentiments expressed in the quote above continue to be true in 2008, although
governmental bodies overseeing state systems of higher education have begun to
address the identified problem in systematic ways. Whereas in the past, K-12 and
Author’s Note: An earlier discussion of these issues appeared in the Winter 2005-2006 newsletter of the
Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education (TACHE). Correspondence concerning this article
should be addressed to Maricela Oliva, University of Texas at San Antonio, Educational Leadership &
Policy Studies, One UTSA Circle, MB 3.310, San Antonio, TX 78249; e-mail: [email protected].
119
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120 Journal of Hispanic Higher Education
higher education actors and decision makers had been encouraged to meet, discuss,
and otherwise work together to rectify problems stemming from this separation
across levels, policy makers have become more directive in recent years about doing
so (Oliva, 2004). This is discussed in more detail in a later part of this article. The
push for greater linkage and coordination is itself incremental rather than wholesale,
however. Promoting change regarding the traditional separation of educational levels
has not presumed the need for a complete overhaul of separate systems but rather the
creation of crosswalks or bridges that overcome a problematic breach between levels
(Kirst & Venezia, 2004).
One of the main reasons for this policy innovation is that the separation of educational levels is understood as contributing and related to the persistent underrepresentation of Latino and other nontraditional students in higher education. The
persistence of Latino educational underachievement and underrepresentation with
respect to college is documented in studies ranging from the 1980s (Pachón &
Moore, 1981), 1990s (Post, 1990) through today (Chapa & De la Rosa, 2006;
Cooper & Lious, 2007; Deil-Amen & Turley, 2007; Goldrick-Rab, Carter, &
Wagner, 2007; Louie, 2007; McWhirter, Torres, Salgado, & Valdez, 2007; Perna,
2000; Perna et al., 2007; Post, 1990; Teranishi & Briscoe, 2006). With attention to
the case of Texas as illustrative of trends nationwide, the purpose of this article is to
provide evidence that as educators and policy makers, we are not doing as well with
Latino college access and success as we can and need to do. While rates for Latino
college access and college outcomes vary from state to state, pervasive low access
and success rates are particularly dire for states with large and growing Latino
student populations. Even in this sense, however, states with high Latino populations
are simply the leading edge of demographic shifts and educational issues that are
spreading across the country. Solutions are needed more than ever, now that Latinos
as a group are the largest minority group in the country. Thus, the continuing underrepresentation of students from groups that are or will soon comprise the majority of
college-age students (Tienda, Leicht, Sullivan, Maltese, & Lloyd, 2003) portends dire
consequences for the country as a whole unless interventions to improve outcomes
are identified and implemented.
Within Texas, several specific state legislative statutes involving K-16 school–
university partnerships point to ways in which educators can individually and institutionally become more engaged with schools to improve college outcomes. Implicit
in these statutes is the expectation that postsecondary educators will need to change
practices and to more actively step outside the traditional higher education role by
connecting more consistently and systemically with K-12 schools. Such initiatives
also reflect a growing consensus that it is no longer enough or even possible to
address the problem of Latino student underrepresentation in college from only the
college or university side of the K-16 divide. The argument that is increasingly being
made is that educators at both levels have to become boundary-crossers (López,
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Oliva / Latino College Access 121
González, & Fierro, 2006) to mitigate the intransigent problem of Latino student
underrepresentation in college. To do this in ways that improve college-going for
Latinos, educators at both levels—with the support of state and regional policy
makers—will need to engage in the kinds of school–university collaborations and
partnerships discussed below.
Texas’ Case: What The Numbers Show
Despite the demographic data that show an exponentially growing Latino population within Texas (Murdoch et al., 2002), educators in the state cannot assume that
growing numbers of Latinos in the state population will necessarily or automatically
translate into improved Latino college outcomes. Although the number of students
in college may grow with each passing year, reports indicate that Latinos are doing
worse as a percentage of college-goers because their proportion of the college-age
population is growing so dramatically. As recently as 2003, Tienda et al. (2003),
reported that the college-age Latino population in Texas exceeded 40%, although the
college-student population for Texas is not 40% Latino. A recent Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board (THECB) performance report (THECB, 2004) shows
that Latinos represented 20.4% of the Fall 2002 statewide university enrollment and
between 26% and 31% by category and program area of statewide community
college enrollments (THECB, n.d.). Other sources show that Latino students as a whole
are the most underrepresented of groups in higher education (Miller & Garcia, 2004;
Nuñez & Carroll, 1998; Post, 1990). Furthermore, in Texas, the gap between the collegegoing rate of White and Latinos is growing rather than diminishing (Oliva, 2004).
Within Texas, educators are substantively aware of what the state has been doing
to improve Latino college access and success, and some of the activities are
described below. For example, Closing the Gaps by 2015 is the THECB’s vision
statement that includes college participation goals for Latino and other groups.
Authors of that report state that to be successful by 2015, the State of Texas needs
to enroll 35,000 new White students (beyond those already expected to enroll),
19,000 more African American students, and 120,000 new Latino students (THECB,
2000). The last number—that of Latino students that we need to enroll to meet
goals—is huge in comparison to others and about equivalent to three new state flagship institutions.1 Revised enrollment goals since 2000 also indicate that the state
will need more students than those reflected in these numbers to meet disaggregated
student percent participation goals. However, recent THECB Closing the Gaps
progress reports (2005a) show that Texas is doing the worst at achieving college participation goals for Latino students, in comparison to how it is doing with White and
African American students. White and African American students have enrolled in
college at 39,000 and 6,000 students (respectively) beyond participation targets,
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122 Journal of Hispanic Higher Education
whereas institutions enrolled 30,661 fewer Latino students than the number needed
to meet the 2005 participation goals. Stated another way, Latino students achieved
the targeted increase for 2005 only at 70.1% of goal, whereas White students did so
at 289.9% of goal and African American students at 126.6% of goal (for more see
THECB, 2005a). In the most recent status report showing progress with each of the
monitored groups, only Latinos were shown as having college participation numbers
that were below anticipated target levels (THECB, 2007).
Because Latino students are the fastest growing segment of the college-going
population in Texas, the outlook for Latino families, Latino communities, and the
state as a whole is dismal unless these trends are reversed to achieve Latino student
college participation on a par with White students. Achieving equitable participation
in college across White, African American, and Latino student groups is, in fact, a
goal of the Closing the Gaps initiative. Yet, we are far from equitable participation
in current years and lose ground toward that goal year to year as the Latino population grows and the population of other groups declines or remains stable.
Related Literature
It used to be the case that scholars studying college access and success focused
their research on individual-level explanations for why certain individuals did not do
as well as others. Such work focused on things like students’ academic preparation,
motivation, or college-choice processes—among other things—that sometimes presumed student or family deficiencies with respect to their ability to do what was necessary to achieve desired college outcomes. With the more widespread acceptance of
new qualitative methodologies and a stronger presence of minority scholars studying college access for those communities, new questions are being asked and more
culturally responsive findings are being produced regarding what works and does not
with Latino students.
A few examples are illustrative of more recent efforts. Established scholars
(Cabrera, & La Nasa, 2000; Nuñez & Carroll, 1998; Perna, 2000; Saenz, Hurtado,
Barrera, Wolf, & Yeung, 2007) have studied the impact of socioeconomic status on
the college choice of disadvantaged students. Like McDonough (1997), this scholarship highlights the ways in which social and cultural capital affect students’ and
families’ ability to navigate the pathway from lower to higher education. Nora
(1990) and Jackson (1990) study the effect of campus aid and institutional structure
and programming on the retention of Hispanic students in community college. Other
scholars (Oliva & Nora, 2004) also explore the impact of class, high school preparation, and early intervention on the likelihood that first generation and minority
students will access college. Abi-Nader (1990) and Attinasi (1989) have studied the
special motivators that influence college-going and retention behaviors for Latino
students, highlighting the culturally distinct issues that impact choices and decisions
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Oliva / Latino College Access 123
among Latinos. Along those lines, Tierney (1999) similarly challenges the taken-forgranted views about what motivates students to stay in or drop out of college. He
deconstructs prevailing theoretical models with an ostensibly “cultural” orientation
to uncover the ways in which models that work relatively well for Anglo-American
students may not as effectively be applied to underrepresented students. Rendón,
Jalomo, and Nora (2000) echo that critique and offer even deeper insights into the
ways that scholarship on student retention needs to be critically assessed and more
critically applied when it comes to minority students. Kane (1998) and Perna (2000)
have explicitly contrasted what the data show about influencers and predictors of
student success among Anglo, African American, and Hispanic students. In so doing,
they reinforce and prove the need to investigate and address student issues in culturally appropriate ways rather than in one-size-fits-all approaches. Finally, emerging
scholars like Flores, Horn, and Crisp (2006) continue to explore in greater complexity the ways that factors influencing community college performance affect Latino
students differently than other students. These scholars further posit that college
access and performance cannot be considered apart from larger external social issues
that uniquely affect Latino students. Some of those broader and external social issues
include a student’s immigration status, whether they are eligible for in-state versus
out-of-station tuition, the governance and culture of Hispanic Serving Institutions,
and the as-yet largely unknown implications of new policy interventions like Dual
Admissions and Dual Enrollment programs.
There is not time in this short piece to more extensively discuss or review this
interesting and innovative scholarship that more responsively addresses influencers
and motivators of Latino college and access and success. For our purposes, it is
important to note that this new work is important in that it has focused less on the
deficiencies of Latino students and families vis-à-vis college outcomes as opposed
to on the need to systemically and systematically address the needs of these students
in culturally appropriate ways. One of the strategies that has been identified as being
more responsive and having greater promise to positively affect college outcomes is
to strengthen higher education linkages with the K-12 sector. Such improved linkages between higher education and K-12 levels are shown to matter particularly to
minority and first generation students because those students are less likely to navigate the K-12 to college breach successfully without stronger coordination between
the two levels.
Bridging The K-16 Divide
Problems created by the structural chasm between educational levels are the focus
of the Bridge Project (Kirst & Venezia, 2004) at Stanford University. That multistate
research project involving researchers from across the country has looked at what
students and families know about college and at how information about college
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124 Journal of Hispanic Higher Education
expectations and requirements are disseminated across people and the policy system.
Researchers concluded that many minority and first generation students are not clear
about and highly overestimate the cost of college. In some cases, uninformed
students project community college and university cost at two to ten times what it
actually is. This overestimation of cost then discourages low-income, loan-averse
students from choosing to attend college. Furthermore, first generation students
whose parents did not attend college are more likely than others to have an unrealistic sense of college cost and more likely to be frightened away from attending by
those incorrect estimates.
Other researchers similarly point out the lack of adequate adult guidance available from school personnel and family members to prospective students who attend
high-minority schools, have low family incomes, or are first generation college
students. McDonough’s (1997) study of four different high schools concluded that
schools serving minority or low-income students were organized in ways that provided little time for counselors to share college information or college help with high
school students. This was not as much the case in affluent or predominately White
high schools. A Tomás Rivera Center study found that the amount of adult guidance
about college that Latino parents could provide to their children is limited compared
to other parents and depends on whether they have been to college, on their socioeconomic status, and on how long they have resided in the United States (Tornatzky,
Cutler, & Lee, 2002). My own research, in process, with Latino parents preliminarily indicates that Spanish speaking and other Latino parents want their children to go
to college but do not know enough about college, the academic preparation that is
required, and how to apply to help their children get ready for and get into college
(Oliva, 2007). Schools and school personnel can help to fill this information and
guidance breach if they understand the need to do so and, as called for by recent legislation described below, reorganize to that end.
Despite clear evidence that students have differential access to college knowledge, information, and guidance at home and at school, colleges and universities for
the most part act as though today’s Latino students have the same level of information, understanding, preparation, and financial or other resources that typical college
students have had in years past (Cooper & Lious, 2007; Post, 1990). Institutions and
their faculty and staff personnel can be more culturally responsive and helpful to
Latino and other underrepresented students by stepping back from these assumptions and by determining what specific needs and obstacles exist for Latino and other
groups underrepresented in college and that we must see enroll in larger numbers.
Doing this involves what López et al. (2006) call border-crossing—stepping outside
of what we know and are most comfortable with as educators to help students to succeed. One increasingly validated way to achieve postsecondary student enrollment
and success goals is for postsecondary educators to boundary-cross by working more
closely, collaboratively, and as partners with K-12 schools.
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Oliva / Latino College Access 125
K-16 Coordination
McLendon and Heller (2002) describe a national movement to encourage such
cross-level collaboration and partnership. The creation and replication of statewide
P-16 (Prekindergarten through College) Councils across several states seem intended
to insure that schools and universities work more closely together for various reasons. Several states are using P-16 councils as a strategy partly because such organizations serve as “incubators of P-16 knowledge” to address a range of problems
precipitated by and associated with the K-12/higher education breach. Not surprisingly, Texas legislators and state education organizations have recently taken steps
that reflect this increased attention to coordination between levels, including the formal creation of a statewide P-16 Council in 2003.
Although cross-level coordination between the Texas Education Agency and the
THECB had been encouraged as far back as State Senator Truan’s 1980s legislation
to create the State Board of Education/THECB Joint Advisory Committee, early
efforts only encouraged cross-level coordination to improve outcomes. Recent efforts
have gone so far as to mandate certain K-16 activities and have otherwise institutionalized cross-level activities to encourage more coordination and partnership among
teachers/faculty, staff, and administrators.
Legislatively Mandated K-16 Initiatives
Much of the Texas school–college collaboration and partnership that is described
above has been put into effect by Texas Legislatures since 2001. In that year, the 77th
Texas Legislature mandated the creation of a P-16 record database to facilitate the
monitoring of student performance and achievement across K-12 and postsecondary
education levels. This database is largely actualized; however, data and related
reports are highly controlled and can be accessed only by designated liaisons to P16 activity.2 Also in 2001, the Legislature passed SB 158, which requires elementary,
middle, and high school counselors to provide college information to students and
families, including information about entrance requirements, financial aid, the top
10% plan, and more. As discussed earlier, innovations involving school counselors
and culturally responsive interventions have the potential to positively affect collegegoing among Latinos (Cooper & Lious, 2007; Post, 1990). The extent to which the
new counseling-for-college state mandate is having an impact among college-age
Latino students has not adequately been studied. Scholars have yet to adequately
research how the legislative mandate is being implemented at the school level and
the impact that such efforts within the state are having on Latino students.
Both to assess how well high schools were doing at sending students to college
and to encourage the lowest-performing of these to do better, the Legislature passed
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126 Journal of Hispanic Higher Education
HB 400 in 2001. The statute mandated that the lowest decile—by percentage—of
high schools sending students to college was required to partner with local community colleges or universities to improve college-going rates. Again that year, SB 573
required the THECB to start a statewide college marketing campaign to encourage
more young people to attend college. Outcomes of SB 573 include the statewide
establishment of “Go Centers,” which are college recruitment and information
offices in high schools designed to provide students with readily accessible information about college. “Go Centers” now exist in numerous state high schools or
mobile centers and are used to recruit, prepare, and smoothly transit Latino and
underrepresented students from high school to college. During the same session,
THECB and TEA encouraged the creation of a state P-16 Council (like those discussed above and by McLendon & Heller, 2002) to institutionalize and broaden the
emerging strategy of school–university linkages such as those in the statutory partnerships just described. This institutionalization of the state-level P-16 Council was
fully effected in 2003 by the 78th Texas Legislature. Modifications to the Council
were made again in the 79th Texas Legislature in 2005, in which the council was also
asked to study and report on (a) the Advanced Placement courses that provide high
school students with dual and concurrent enrollment; (b) the curriculum required for
the Recommended High School Program; and (c) possible changes to the curriculum
that would enhance its rigor and the likelihood of college attendance by 2007
(THECB, 2005b).
What This Means for
Policy Makers and Educators
Those of us involved in the education of children and young adults, whether at
K-12 or higher education levels, devote much of our professional lives and a significant part of our personal energy to improve the educational outcomes of
Latinos. If we have acquired master’s and doctoral degrees in the process, to a great
extent we have been trained to do so in the tradition of K-12 or higher education
disciplines. No one is being trained as yet in K-16 program implementation or
development, and the reality is that Latino and other underrepresented students
need for us to develop a K-16 mind-set quickly to help them get into and succeed
in college. Without this, we are unlikely to achieve a state mission and vision for
the education of Latinos and other underrepresented students. However, like institutions, postsecondary educators may be unaware of or even resist changes in practice and thinking that are needed to better meet students’ needs. James Coaxum, a
colleague who grapples with the task of improving college access for underrepresented students, pointedly has asked:
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Oliva / Latino College Access 127
When and where does access begin? Does it begin once a student graduates high
school? Does it begin when students enter the K-12 system? Regardless of how one
answers the question, the key point is that schooling must be viewed as a pipeline that
begins when a students first enters school and ends when a student completes their final
degree. This then requires the two systems to depend on each other. In the case of
access, articulation between the two systems is crucial. If students are to be prepared
for college, then there must be conversations at both levels as to how to make this possible. (Wolverton, Kinser, Coaxum, Hyle, & Rusch, 2002)
Policy makers and scholars across the country are beginning to come to similar
conclusions. The result is that in states like Texas, educators are increasingly asked
to think and work from a more K-16 or K-20 coordinated educational structure and
to take on new imagery—such as that of the educational pipeline or continuum—for
that work. This does not diminish the value of education at any one level, but simply
recognizes that a student-centered focus looks beyond artificial structural levels to
help students succeed across them.
If postsecondary educators and policy makers do not help Latino students’
schools to improve student outcomes, the schools are not likely to do so, meaning
that we will continue to suffer underachievement as well as the unacceptable and
inordinately high dropout rates for Latino and other students who are currently
underrepresented in higher education. In turn, this will mean that we are unlikely to
make significant inroads on the task of making sure that Latinos are proportionally
represented in higher education on a par with other groups. The truth is that college
access begins years before students walk through our college gates. School and college educators are on the same ship when it comes to student performance and we
either sail or sink together.
As a higher education scholar with a clear K-16 experiential and philosophical
orientation, I believe it is important for postsecondary educators to be creative and
resolved to doing whatever is necessary to reach down and outside college gates to
work with Latino students and families in their home and school communities. By
the same token, it is also important for P-12 educators to understand that they are
structuring their students’ college prospects from the moment that students enter
school and so need to reconsider their work with this in mind. This is especially the
case when students come from low socioeconomic status families, when they are the
first in their family to go to college, when they attend majority minority schools, and
when their non-White race or ethnicity means that postsecondary institutions are not yet
as responsive as they could be to meeting their needs. If engaged in thoughtfully and
well, partnerships between schools, postsecondary institutions, and the policy makers
who shape state education contexts have the potential to help us to collaboratively
close the gap between goals and outcomes for Latino educational achievement and
college success.
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128 Journal of Hispanic Higher Education
Notes
1. Enrollment at Texas’s four-year institutions of higher education range from a low of 1,624 at Texas
A & M-Texarkana to a high of 49,738 at the University of Texas-Austin. Together, the three largest Texas
public institutions of higher education enroll an average of 43,148 students per institution. For more on
state institutional enrollments at both 2- and 4-year institutions, see preliminary Fall 2006 enrollments at
http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/reports/XLS/1263.XLS.
2. Contact information for the P-16 councils in the state is accessible on the THECB Web site at
http://www.p16texas.org/RegionalCouncils.pdf.
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Maricela Oliva, PhD, is assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership & Policy
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students focuses on factors that impact the transition to college, such as school–university collaboration,
parent and family sociocultural capital, and state higher education policy.
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