Has Federal Funding for Hispanic-Serving Institutions Improved Student Success?
By Allie Bidwell, Communications Staff
In higher education, certain methods and strategies have been tied to improved student success outcomes, but it’s always been more difficult to draw a direct line between increased funding and improved outcomes. Excelencia in Education set out to examine whether increased federal funding over the last 20 years has increased institutional capacity, quality, and student success at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs).
The short answer is yes.
Twenty years after the federal government began awarding grants to HSIs through the Title V: Developing HSIs program, the number of HSIs has more than doubled, Latinos have increased their access to higher education, and Latino educational attainment has nearly doubled. More than that, the gaps between Latino students and their white peers on metrics such as enrollment rates, graduation rates, and educational attainment rates have narrowed, according to a new brief from Excelencia, funded by TG.
Currently, HSIs enroll more than 60 percent of all Latino undergraduate students, according to Excelencia’s research, and represent 13 percent of all institutions of higher education. Since the Title V funding for HSIs began in 1995, the number of those institutions has grown from 189 to 409 in 2014, and 435 today. And while Excelencia was not able to provide a causal association between those funds and student achievement, there have been clear links and correlations.
By and large, the HSIs that have received Title V grants (with an average amount of about $525,000 per year for five years) have used that money to invest in faculty and curriculum development, student support services, and fund and administrative management –– areas known to influence student success. And over the last 20 years, Latino students have almost closed the college enrollment rate gap –– that is, the percentage of students who go immediately from high school to college. That number has increased from 49 percent in 1994 (when the gap between Latino and white students was 15 percentage points) to 65 percent in 2014, with a gap of just 3 percentage points.
Excelencia’s research also showed that students at HSIs are persisting, which is an important distinction from graduation rates, according to Deborah Santiago, COO and vice president for policy at Excelencia. Latino students are nearly twice as likely to persist, she said, if they are enrolled at an HSI.
Making sure these institutions are properly serving the students they’re enrolling is becoming increasingly important, a panel of experts said, as Latino students become a larger portion of the overall student population.
“If the majority of students are going to be Latino students, then let’s get it right,” said Jacob Fraire, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Community Colleges.
“HSIs as a policy construct has now stood the test –– budget debates, policy debates, debates in the field,” Fraire added. “I think we have an opportunity, but frankly a larger responsibility to make sure it stands the test for another 20 years. … We have an incredible wealth of information, an incredible wealth of experience among HSIs, and we have an opportunity now to tease that out and share it.”
Showing how funding has helped HSIs better serve students will also matter on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers work to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA) and make decisions about funding different higher education programs, including federal student aid programs, according to Bryce McKibben, a policy advisor for the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
“This is going to be increasingly important in order to be able to tell taxpayers the investments … are important and valuable, and are serving students well,” McKibben said.
Still, just over half of HSIs have received at least one grant from the Title V program, as the growth in the number of HSIs has outpaced funding for the program.
Beatriz Ceja, the HSI Division director for the Department of Education (ED), said funding for the program has fluctuated over the years –– starting at $12 million when the program began, rising as high as $117 million in 2010, and dipping to $99 million in 2014. If the program started with a clean slate, Ceja said, and divided appropriations by institutions now, each would receive about $250,000 each year. But because the program funds multi-year grants, the money available for new grants is even more limited. This year, for example, the program had $107 million, Ceja said, and had $16 million left over after providing continuation awards to fund new grants.
Sharing knowledge, Ceja said, “becomes critical” to help institutions that have been classified as an HSI for a number of years, but have never received a grant.
And in order to better align the grant-awarding process with current goals, ED is attempting to make changes to how it selects institutions to receive grants, Ceja said. Through priorities in the program, the division is attempting to identify institutions that have never received a grant, for example, and award extra “points” in the process. The division has also asked new grantees to set up logic models to identify an “if/then” relationship between their proposals, and how they hope to impact student outcomes.
“The definition [of an HSI] itself is based on inputs” such as enrollment and core expenditures, Ceja said. “If we are going to have a conversation that emphasizes that ‘serving’ piece, we’re going to have to at some point look at the definition in terms of outputs. This report really came at a critical time for us as we think about what these investments are actually doing at the institutions that we’re providing these grants.”
Publication Date: 5/19/2016
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