Higher education is not just for new high school graduates
Many families in the growing Hispanic population of the United States have a recent high school graduate who is the first ever in the family to attend college. They will head off to a campus sometimes hundreds of miles from home.
They may not be the only ones in the family who want a college education, but building a new life in a new place is often not possible for the people – parents or older siblings – who are sending the first-generation student off to school.
But this reality need not be a barrier to fulfilling the desire for an education. In the digital age, a distance education is easier, more affordable and more effective than ever before. Almost all established colleges and universities have degree programs available online.
“A virtual education is good for anyone who wants to return to school but can’t because they have a job or a family and can’t just give up everything to take classes,” said Mercedes Ramos, program director of Fort Hays State University’s Higher Education Opportunity Center in Garden City.
“Hispanic students, especially, often don’t go on to college after high school because of family obligations, and then they begin to think that they can’t go back to school because they are too old.”
However, a virtual education means that students can take classes on their schedules, on their budgets, without leaving jobs, homes and families.
“With the availability of a virtual education, family obligations do not have to mean that the dream of a college education is dead,” said Ramos.
The adventure can start with an Internet search. At Fort Hays State, where distance education has evolved continuously with technology since the first correspondence courses were offered in 1911, the search can begin at www.fhsu.edu/virtualcollege.
