Fort Hayes State begins Hispanic college prep program
Fort Hays State University debuted its Hispanic college readiness program on Wednesday.
High school students arrived at the university for four-day, on-campus higher education prep program Hispanic College Institute. The first class made of 115 high school sophomores and juniors.
Students will be led through a battery of workshops on how to apply, pay for and be successful in college.
Speaking after receiving the inaugural high school student group participating in the Hispanic College Institute, university President Mirta Martin said the driving force animating the program is as much the individuals’ success as it is the success of the nation. Martin cited Georgetown University data showing 69 percent of all U.S. jobs will require at least a two-year degree by 2020. In Kansas, that’s 71 percent of jobs.
2020 is the projected graduation date of “entering freshman this fall,” Martin said. “They’re graduating in to a world that hardly resembles the world from which we graduated.”
“It’s incumbent among higher ed to create a pipeline” of educated talent.
Martin was previously an administrator with Virginia State University where she successfully started a Hispanic college readiness program there. Virginia’s Hispanic College Institute had a postsecondary education enrollment rate of 89 percent.
Martin said the program has special importance in the current racial composition of U.S. society. Hispanics are the fastest growing demographic in the country.
Yet, Hispanic education attainment lags behind that of every other ethnic group. According to the U.S. Census, Hispanics had the highest percentage of high school dropouts in 2014, 10.6 percent.
