Hispanics’ college success rises

Associated Press

RIVERSIDE, Calif.

When Roberto Rodriguez arrived at the University of California campus here four years ago, he felt an emotional tug so many other Hispanic first-generation college students talk about.

His parents wanted him out of their battle-scarred south-central Los Angeles neighborhood and in college. But his mother also didn’t want him to stray too far from their home.

Three years and some bumps later, with graduation within reach, Roberto’s father suffered a heart attack and was diagnosed with diabetes — the kind of family crisis capable of derailing any college career.

But instead of becoming a dropout statistic, Rodriguez will graduate with honors this month from UC-Riverside, where graduation rate gaps that separate Hispanic students from their peers on a national level simply do not exist.

Studies show that more Hispanic students are enrolling in college, but a disproportionate number drop out with debt instead of degrees. At the average college or university, 51 percent of Hispanic students earn a bachelor’s degree in six years, compared to 59 percent of white students, according to a March study by the American Enterprise Institute.

For students from underperforming high schools or with parents unfamiliar with the demands of college life, it might appear the odds of making it to graduation day are against them before their first class.

But authors of a January report from The Education Trust and other researchers point out that similar institutions that serve similar students show wide disparities in graduation rates. Their argument: What colleges do matters.

Two Southern California schools — one large public university in the desert and one small private liberal arts college that educated Richard Nixon — back up that contention.

Separated by little more than an hour’s drive in light traffic, UC-Riverside and Whittier College both make targeted efforts to lift the achievement of all students and help their large Hispanic student populations feel less alienated.

The result: Hispanic students describe a sense of home and family at both schools, something core to their culture and an important ingredient to their college success.

To hear Brownie Sibrian tell it, that kind of attention saved his college career. The first in his family to attend college, Sibrian is the son of a car mechanic and a stay-at-home mom who left El Salvador for a better life.

In a cruel twist, his parents filed for divorce on his first day at Whittier, where he’d won a $12,000 theater scholarship. He skipped classes and sat depressed in his dorm. Within a month, he was ready to drop out.

A math professor, one of Brownie’s mentors, noticed something wrong and confronted him.