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Reaching For The Stars: 20 Years Of Success In Advising Potential Latino Engineering Students

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Conference

1997 Annual Conference

Location

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Publication Date

June 15, 1997

Start Date

June 15, 1997

End Date

June 18, 1997

ISSN

2153-5965

Page Count

5

Page Numbers

2.339.1 - 2.339.5

DOI

10.18260/1-2--6756

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/6756

Download Count

332

Paper Authors

author page

Rosa Gerra

author page

José L. Torres

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Abstract
NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract

Session 2470

Reaching for the Stars: 20 Years of Success in Advising Potential Latino Engineering Students

José L. Torres, Rosa Gerra Indiana Institute of Technology/United Hispanic Americans Inc.

Introduction Access to higher education has long been considered one of the cornerstones upon which true racial and social equality must be built upon (Morrison, 1995.) Unfortunately, even after most significant social and legal barriers have been torn down, college enrollment among the two largest minority groups still lags behind that of the majority population. As shown in Figure 1, in recent years the College enrollment of African American and Latino students has grown at a faster rate of that of Caucasian students, but much remains to be done.

1.50 15.0

African - American 1.25 12.5 Caucasian

1.00 10.0

0.75 0.75 Latino

0.50 0.50

Figure 1. College enrollment in the U.S., 1984-1994. (Note that the Caucasian students curve is plotted on a different scale, shown at the right). (Chronicle, 1997)

In the particular case of Hispanic/Latino students, national statistics show a significant lag behind other racial groups in the U.S., as shown in Table 1.

Non-Hispanics Hispanics Completed High School 81.6% 52.6% Received a B.S. degree 13.7% 5.9%

Table 1. Some characteristics of ethnic groups in the U.S. (Chronicle, 1997).

Gerra, R., & Torres, J. L. (1997, June), Reaching For The Stars: 20 Years Of Success In Advising Potential Latino Engineering Students Paper presented at 1997 Annual Conference, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 10.18260/1-2--6756

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