PART 1: Access to Higher Education The Latino Ph.D. Problem: WHERE ARE THEY?

Transcription

1 COVER STORY PART 1: Access to Higher Education The Latino Ph.D. Problem: WHERE ARE THEY? Stories by Michael Gentilucci & Eric Baca Infographic design by Eric Fenny

2 32 May - April 2012 It s 5:45 a.m., and the alarm just went off. Yesina Morillo-Gual gets up and begins another 18-hour plus day. She s figured out that waking up at that exact time gives her enough space to get ready for work and, along with her husband, get her two children ready for school. By 7, she s out the door. Work starts at 8 and, most days, ends at 6 p.m. Dinnertime is around 6:30, and family time usually extends to 9 p.m, the children s prescribed bedtime. But just as the children are going down to end their day, Yesenia continues hers and begins or continues her homework. A few hours later, she is hitting the alarm clock to do it again. Yesenia s story is hardly unique. In fact, it s arguably the norm for Ph.D. candidates, Latino and non-latino alike. You re tired all of the time, she said. I will honestly say to you that there are times when I said that I couldn t do it anymore. I am so exhausted, but there s something there that says, You re almost there. Keep moving. Yesenia is currently one of the few thousand Latinos working toward a doctoral degree. A wife, a mother of two, and a Senior Vice President of Financial Services at a major financial institution, Yesenia is not necessarily looking for distinction or trying to advance her career in academia. That thing for Yesenia is the assuredness that education has always been a ladder in her life. The daughter of a woman with a second grade education, Yesenia said she has always viewed higher education degrees as the best way to escape poverty. But Yesenia is part of a bigger progression that Latinos are in fact obtaining higher amounts of higher education. The number of Latinos awarded Ph.D.s in the school year rose to 2,540. Just 10 years before, it was 1,302. A little bit of lag time should be expected here, considering that doctoral degrees often take 5-7 years of additional schooling beyond a bachelor s, but the bottom line is that Latinos are grossly underrepresented at the highest levels of academia, and have been so for a long time. According to the latest figures from the U.S. Department of Education, Latinos hold slightly less than 3 percent of the total number of doctoral degrees in the United States. Now the overall number of Latinos receiving Ph.D.s has increased by more than 140 percent in the last 20 years, but when looking at these numbers as a percentage of the total, there has been only a marginal increase. When you consider that the Latino population in the U.S. has more than doubled over that same time period, and is now more than 16 percent of the total population, it begs the question: Why haven t we seen a more significant increase? Indeed, Latinos have been picking up ground at lower levels more rapidly, now earning 12.4 percent of the total associate s degrees conferred, compared to 8.7 percent just a decade ago. The higher up one goes though, the smaller the gains become. Bachelor s and master s degrees have increased around 2 percentage points in the same time period. For professional and doctoral degrees, the increase has been a mere.7 percent. On the other side of the coin, affirmative action laws, as well as the rapidly expanding Latin American market have caused universities, Fortune 500 companies and other businesses to increasingly seek minority candidates to fill high-level positions in their organizations, and these positions often require post-graduate degrees. The problem is that pool of qualified applicants is already too small to begin with, and the demand seems to be increasing faster than the supply, so rather than seeing an increase in the number of Latinos in these positions, organizations are forced to draw from the very limited pool of qualified applicants that is already in existence, and these people simply end up playing a game of musical chairs, moving from one organization to another with no real net gain made. So what is preventing more Latinos from seeking postgraduate degrees, and what can we do to encourage more to do so? According to Professor Laird Bergad, Director of the Center for Latin American, Caribbean and Latino Studies at the City University of New York, the story is almost always the same. Even Latinos in the top of their undergraduate class, the ones most likely to succeed in graduate - level programs, and the ones that really need to be encouraged to pursue that path, very often do not feel they can afford to do so. They are usually the first in their family to go to college, and they are under pressure to graduate and get a job so they can help support their families. Delaying their return to the workforce for an additional two to seven years, and quite probably taking on a significant amount of additional debt simply isn t in the cards, even if in the long term, the payoff would be worth it. You re tired all of the time, I will honestly say to you that there are times when I said that I couldn t do it anymore. I am so exhausted, but there s something there that says, You re almost there. Keep moving. Yesenia Morillo-Gual, Ph.D. candidate.

3 Yesenia acknowledges the temporal and financial burdens as real and justifiable. But, she also says that earning power can t simply capture the value associated with a Ph.D. or the price tag that comes along with it, which, for a five-year program, can cost more than a quarter of a million dollars. Education has always had a personal accomplishment component for her. Despite the weighty investment, Yesenia says that there s one even harder to overcome: time. Time remains the biggest hindrance and hurdle. She attends Touro University, an online-based program out of California. The do-it-when-youcan format has allowed her to advance in her education, while still maintaining life as a mom and corporate executive. I find myself doing homework on the train, at my lunch hour, whenever I have an opportunity to read, even if it s an article that s required reading, she said. I just always find myself doing homework. When I think about it, the time factor is the biggest challenge. Online courses and programs have become viable options for adults looking to raise their professional profiles. According to The Distance Education and Training Council in Washington, D.C., estimates that more than 2.25 million college and university students are taking some form of online course. It s expected to grow by 33 percent over the next several years. That s probably the only way I would have been able to do it, she said, only because it just allows you so much flexibility. But money will always be the greatest speed bump for most. It s probably the most significant barrier in recruiting Latino students for post-graduate programs, and the impetus behind a proposal Professor Bergad put together in 2008 that was designed to create a scholarship and stipend program at the City University of New York specifically for Latino students interested in seeking post-graduate degrees. The faculty, the administration, the board of trustees, the foundations and corporations that were approached as potential donors everyone thought the program was a great idea especially considering the CUNY boasts such a high percentage of Latino students. In fact, Professor Bergad describes As of 2008 Latinos earned 5.2 percent of doctoral Latinos earned 6.8 percent of master s Latinos earned 5.3 percent of bachelor s SOURCE: College Board Advocacy and Policy Center. how his students eyes lit up at the prospect. Unfortunately however, CUNY has been unable as of yet to secure funding for the program. While scholarship programs such as the one proposed at CUNY are not all the common, there are a number of nonprofit groups that provide post-graduate assistance for Latinos, and for minorities in general as part of larger programs focused on higher education. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, for example, has given more than $4.1 million in scholarships and computers to Latino students since Yet the scholarships CHCI offers for graduate students is a one-time $5,000 award, and tuition at many graduate schools can reach $30,000 to 40,000 per year, or possibly even higher, and this is rapidly rising. So, as is typical with graduate students in general, they are compelled to seek funding from multiple sources and take out loans. Couple that with the growing number of Latinos attending for-profit universities, and the canyon widens. While Latinos are stereotypically known to be debt-averse, studies show that they are also among the most in danger of defaulting on student loans. In his piece, Blacks and Latinos Will Suffer When the Student Debt Bubble Bursts, David A. Love wrote that high unemployment compounds the problem, leaving recent graduates with few income-earning options and pending loan payments. SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education. The Latino Ph.D. Problem

4 Latino Leaders 34 Mes 2011

5 NCES reports that over half of all doctoral students attend school full-time and 93% receive some form of financial assistance. Many lending companies, non-profit organizations and employers offer financial aid to help students pay for their education. The 2008 NCES study stipulated that money received from student loans covered approximately 35% of the tuition with the remainder covered by work programs, grants and other types of free aid. Citing a 2007 survey, Love highlights that Blacks had a default rate five times as high as whites and nine times as high as Asians. Latinos fare slightly better with default rates two times as high as whites and four times as high as Asians. These numbers are not restricted to Ph.D. students, but the data is indicative of the larger problem, which tapers upward, but remains nonetheless. In seeking graduate degrees, the realities of supporting oneself and the larger family often stymie Latinos for seeking college education altogether. When nearly 75 percent of respondents of a Pew Hispanic Center poll say that they cut education short to care for family, it s obvious that external and internal factors are at play, some that aren t easily cured with legislation or scholarships. Dr. Rey Guerra says that it is primarily this family-need component that places limitations on prospective college students. What makes us strong, makes us weak. Our familyoriented culture often times makes mijo/a stay home and attend college at Fresno State instead of going away to Stanford, said Guerra, a Houston-based engineer. The point is that high schools, colleges, and non-profits need to focus on recruiting the parents of potential students as much as they do the students. We will be better off for allowing our kids to follow their dreams. When considering higher forms of education, students inevitably weigh the probability of increasing their financial earning power vs. the short-term decision to pay for more schooling. According to Payscale.com, Ph.D. holders expected salary varies on type of employment. The 2010 study found that university professors earn a median We know where this is going only those well-educated will survive. A majority of low income Latinos will prove disastrous and could bring the U.S. to financial collapse. If the population cannot support the state, it will fall into ruin. Dr. William Vega, Latino Leaders Magazine Interview 2010 salary of $87,169 annually. Corporate employees make slightly more, with an expected annual income of right under $95,000. Of course, this is not entry-level, which is closer to $60,000. So why choose to do it in the first place, when the data seems to suggest it might be slightly illogical? Our next section, the doctoral portfolio presents six Chicago-based examples of both the how and the why. Successful completers of doctoral programs, they weren t asked what the problem was or is. Instead, they were asked for their solutions and remedies. Latino Leaders The Latino Ph.D. Problem