The San Antonio Education Partnership recently announced the launch of the Diplomás Project, with the goal of raising college completion rates among Latinos by 9 percent by mid-2015. “Latino Student Success Effort in San Antonio – The Key to our Economic Future”, T. Benavides, San Antonio Education Partnership blog, October 11, 2012.
Says Judy McCormick, executive director of the P16Plus Council of Greater Bexar County, a participating organization:
“We have a lot of students enrolling but not too many finishing and a lot of it has to do with being college ready,” McCormick said. “If they’re in college, we want to make sure we can provide more support once we find out which barriers they are facing.”
“Nonprofits, schools to push Latino college success”, Jennifer R. Lloyd, San Antonio Express-News, October 12, 2012.
A recent grant from the Lumina Foundation will cover some of the cost of the Diplomás Project. “Foundations Help 12 State Partnerships Expand Associate Degree Completion for Students Transferring from Community Colleges to Universities”, Lumina Foundation blog, October 10, 2012.
Besides the P16Plus Council, other participating organizations include the City of San Antonio, Generation TX San Antonio, Advise TX, Educate Texas, the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education, the Alamo Colleges, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Hispanic Scholarship Fund—Scholar Chapter at UTSA, Harlandale ISD, Northside ISD, San Antonio ISD, and Southwest ISD.
My perspective: This is an important problem and I’m glad these folks are working on it; they need to keep in mind that the college readiness problem starts long before graduation or the senior year of high school.
