BIG Apple Latinos are attending and graduating college in record numbers.
Census figures show that 16 percent of Hispanics born here between the ages of 25 and 35 earned a bachelor’s degree – that’s double the 8 percent of Hispanics over 35 who earned a college diploma. “The progress has been strong,” said CUNY Graduation Center population researcher John Mollenkopf.
And numbers show that enrollement will continue to rise. One out of every three young people in the city (newborns to age 24) is Latino – the largest ethnic group in that age bracket. At CUNY for example, one of every four students currently enrolled at its campuses is of Hispanic descent – nearly mirroring the city’s 27 percent Latino population.
Local private colleges that charge much higher tuition also have sizeable Hispanic enrollments. Still, many Latinos – native and foreign-born – are not making the grade. The city public high school dropout rate for Hispanics is 39 percent rate, the highest of any group. “The glass is half empty,” Mollenkopf said. Despite coming from poor, non-Eng-lish speaking households many of these students are successfully chasing the American dream. One of them is Mexican born Jennifer Ramirez – an education major at Bronx Community College. She learned to speak English after moving to New York three years ago and is the first in her family to enroll in college.
“I want to encourage kids to study and do something with their lives,” she said. Patricia Fraticelli, 33, who moved here a decade ago from the Dominican Republic, is a single Bronx mom with three children who works at a homeless shelter and takes night courses at Lehman. “I want to be a congresswoman!” said Fraticelli, a social work major. “It’s a challenge juggling these responsibilities.” But she said she wants to set an example for her kids by obtaining a college degree.