Descriptive Analysis of Graduate Enrollment Trends at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: 2005-2015

Abstract

Spanish

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) are postsecondary institutions that enroll 25% Latinx undergraduate students, with little emphasis on graduate enrollment. Graduate enrollment was explored at HSIs, looking at trends over 10 years. Descriptive analyses and data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) were used, shedding light on enrollment inequities between Latinx undergraduate and graduate students. This study has implications for graduate HSIs, which can become primary educators of a diverse, highly educated future workforce.

Keywords

higher education Latina/o trends analysis Hispanic-Serving Institutions graduate education Latinx graduate students

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) are federally defined as nonprofit, degree-granting postsecondary institutions that enroll at least 25% Latinx undergraduate students. Beyond the undergraduate enrollment level, there is little emphasis on graduate enrollment at these institutions. In fact, less than half of all HSIs offer graduate programs. In 2016-2017, only 192 of the 492 eligible HSIs, or 39%, offered graduate degrees (Excelencia in Education, 2018b). Of these 192, 115 offered doctoral degrees as the highest degree, 68 offered master’s degrees, and nine offered graduate certificates (Excelencia in Education, 2018b). Yet HSIs with graduate programs play an essential role in graduating Latinxs with advanced degrees. Of the top 25 institutions graduating Latinxs with master’s degrees, 13 were HSIs, while seven of the top 25 graduating Latinxs with doctoral degrees were HSIs (Excelencia in Education, 2012).

Despite the data that suggest that HSIs have an important role in graduating Latinxs with master’s and doctoral degrees, there are disparities in the enrollment of Latinx graduate students at HSIs in comparison to Latinx undergraduates, with 46% of all undergraduates at HSIs with graduate programs identifying as Latinxs compared with 29% of all the graduate students at these same institutions (Excelencia in Education, 2018b). As institutions that are enrollment driven, with little historical obligation to serve racially minoritized students, scholars and practitioners are actively trying to define “servingness” at HSIs, yet these conversations have been confined to the undergraduate level. With this study, we sought to extend the servingness conversation to the graduate level by looking at trends in graduate enrollment in HSIs over 10 years.

Literature Review

The number of institutions eligible for HSI designation is burgeoning, with 65% of all Latinxs enrolling in HSIs in fall 2016 and 492 institutions eligible for designation as such in the same year (Excelencia in Education, 2018a). The research that centers HSIs is also increasing, and continues to inform the field’s knowledge and understanding of HSIs. Yet a majority of the research has been focused on undergraduates at HSIs (e.g., Cuellar, 2014; Fosnacht & Nailos, 2015; Núñez & Bowers, 2011; Rodríguez & Calderón Galdeano, 2015), often with an emphasis on what it means to serve undergraduate Latinxs (Garcia, 2017). Less is known about graduate students at HSIs (Garcia, 2018). As such, we briefly review literature that considers faculty at HSIs before reviewing literature about graduate students at HSIs.

HSIs: Beyond Undergraduates

There is a growing body of research that focuses on faculty in HSIs. Some studies have emphasized the egregious disparities between the enrollment of Latinx undergraduates in HSIs and the employment of Latinx faculty who teach in HSIs (e.g., Contreras, 2018; Gonzales, 2015). Using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), Gonzales (2015) reported that only 14.92% of the faculty at 70 HSI master’s colleges and universities across the United States self-identified as Latinx. Contreras (2018), a few years later, found that approximately 15% of the tenured or tenure-track faculty at California community colleges (84% are HSIs) identified as Latinx, compared with 42.5% of the student population. Similar gaps existed across the California State University system (78% are HSIs), where 9.6% of the faculty identified as Latinx compared with 37% of the student population (Contreras, 2018).

Other studies have highlighted the reasons why increasing the number of Latinx faculty at HSIs is essential to institutions’ ability to serve Latinx students. Hagedorn, Chi, Cepeda, and McLain (2007) found that the success of Latinxs, as measured by items such as GPA and course completion, significantly increases with a greater representation of Latinx faculty. Torres (2006) discovered an indirect effect of cultural affinity, including the presence of Latinx faculty and staff on campus, on Latinx undergraduates’ intent to persist. These studies showed that, statistically, Latinx faculty enhanced student success, while other studies have highlighted the reasons why. Latina faculty members at one HSI, for example, believed it was their job to advocate for Latinxs students, while also disrupting the institutional systems that were preventing these students from succeeding (Ek, Quijada Cerecer, Alanís, & Rodríguez, 2010). Faculty in HSIs also provide in-class and out-of-class validating experiences (Alcantar & Hernandez, 2018) and encourage students to see themselves as knowers, thinkers, and producers of knowledge in their chosen fields (Gonzales, 2015).

Less is known about graduate students in HSIs. In looking at doctoral student persistence within one HSI, Vaquera (2008) found that being Latinx was a positive indicator of persistence, meaning that being Latinx was not a hindrance to obtaining a doctoral degree at this particular HSI; yet a negative racial climate within the graduate department was a negative predictor, meaning that the department itself could prevent graduate students from succeeding. Exploring the experiences of graduate students at a Hispanic-Serving Research Institution (HSRI), Marin and Pereschica (2018) found that participants had a strong desire to serve as institutional actors at HSIs, helping to define what it meant to serve Latinx undergraduates while serving as mentors to Latinx undergraduates (Marin & Pereschica, 2018). The presence of Latinx graduate students at HSIs may have the same effects on success of undergraduates as the presence of Latinx faculty, yet there is a dearth of research about graduate students at HSIs (Garcia, 2018).

The Increasing Significance of Graduate Education

Graduate education is one function of postsecondary institutions, yet it is becoming an increasingly important role, as more careers in the United States prefer an advanced degree, such as those in education, social work, counseling, nursing, physical therapy, technology, software engineering, management, and marketing (Stillman, 2011). While some of these careers only require a bachelor’s degree, average earnings for those who obtain advanced degrees in these areas is significantly higher compared with those who only hold a bachelor’s degree (Carey, 2004). As such, there is a growing number of people entering graduate programs. In fall 2016, a majority of graduate students were enrolled in programs leading to master’s degrees or graduate certificates (83.4%), with the largest percentage of master’s students enrolled in business and education fields (Okahana & Zhou, 2017). In addition to these popular fields, the Council of Graduate Schools (2018) reported that engineering, social work, and public administration offer master’s degrees designed to prepare students for nonacademic careers, enrolling significant numbers each year. In fall 2016, the largest percentage of doctoral students were enrolled in health sciences, social sciences, education, and engineering (Okahana & Zhou, 2017).

The economic outcomes of enrolling in master’s programs are positive. The Graduate Management Admission Council (2018) reported that a majority of graduates of Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs and other business master’s categories (e.g., Master of Accounting, Master of Finance) were employed, either in industry (79%) or self-employed (10%), with a medium base salary of US$115,000. Those who obtain graduate degrees in biology and life sciences earn 63% more than those who earn bachelor’s degrees in the same areas, while those who obtain graduate degrees in health and medical preparation earn 137% more (Carnevale, Cheah, & Hanson, 2015).

Less is known about graduate enrollment within specific institutional contexts, such as Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). Espinosa, Kelchen, and Taylor (2018) reported that MSIs are in fact helping low-income students move into higher income quartiles, or what they call “economic mobility”; however, the contributions that MSIs make to post-baccalaureate enrollment and graduate education are still unexplored. A recent study shed light on disparities in graduate enrollment of Latinxs at six HSIs in the Midwest (Garcia, 2018). For example, at one master’s granting institution with a Latinx undergraduate enrollment of 35%, only 14% of the graduate students identified as Latinx (Garcia, 2018). Although only one third of all college graduates go on to earn a graduate degree (Carnevale et al., 2015), HSIs have a historical obligation to enroll traditionally underserved students, which should be extended to the graduate level. This is critical, as Latinxs only represent 7% of the jobs that require a graduate degree, despite their 18% representation in the overall population (Carnevale & Fasules, 2017).

Method

With this study, we explored graduate enrollment at HSIs, looking at trends over 10 years, guided by the research questions:

Research Question 1: What were the enrollment trends for Latinx graduate students at HSIs between 2005 and 2015?

Research Question 2: What were the enrollment gaps between graduate and undergraduate Latinx students at HSIs between 2005 and 2015?

We conducted descriptive analysis to investigate both questions, which is a useful analytic method to identify patterns in data that address problems not previously studied (Loeb et al., 2017). This methodology, therefore, was appropriate for this analysis, as research has not yet explored graduate enrollment trends at HSIs.

Sample

The institutional sample included eligible graduate HSIs in the academic year 2015-2016, meaning colleges and universities met the 25% undergraduate Latinx enrollment threshold and had graduate programs. Beyond the enrollment threshold, we did not determine whether institutions in the sample had obtained the HSI designation and/or had received federal funding for this designation. To capture an accurate sample of HSIs with graduate programs, we first obtained a publicly available list from Excelencia in Education (2018b; n = 189). Seven HSIs were immediately excluded from the database because we failed to find a match between the Excelencia in Education list and IPEDS institutions.

We reduced the database further by dropping HSIs that did not have data for both graduate and undergraduate enrollment (n = 2). Next, we dropped HSIs that had a very high level of graduate density >.90. These were HSIs that either had only graduate student populations or a small number of undergraduate students (n = 6). Finally, we removed all HSIs that were in Puerto Rico because they have a very high concentration of Latinxs at both the graduate and undergraduate level, and therefore not representative of HSIs in the continental United States (n = 35). Our final analytical sample included 140 HSIs with undergraduate and graduate programs.

Data Sources and Measures

The primary data source for this study was IPEDS, including Institutional Characteristics (IC) and Enrollment Surveys (ES) for HSI eligible cohorts from 2005 to 2015. The IC survey collects institutional-level data from which we pulled type, size, selectivity, Carnegie classification, and geographic region. The ES survey collects data about institutional enrollments, from which we pulled total enrollment, and enrollment by student level (undergraduate vs. graduate) and by racial/ethnic background. With data from both surveys, we constructed a longitudinal database for analysis.

To address the research questions, we created a series of outcome and grouping variables. Our primary outcome of interest was the percentage of Latinx undergraduate and graduate students at HSIs, aggregated at the student level. This variable was constructed by taking the number of Latinx students at institution (i) and dividing it by the total number of students at institution (i) × 100 for each year (y), for each student level (graduate, undergraduate). Our formula created two variables: Per_LatinG, which was the percentage of graduate students at institution (i) that identified as Latinx, and Per_LatinU, indicating the percentage of undergraduates at institution(i) that identified as Latinx. Our secondary outcome variable was a percentage difference between the proportion of Latinx graduate and undergraduate students at institution (i) (DIFF = Per_LatinG – Per_LatinU), where negative values indicate that the percentage of Latinx graduate students is lower than the percentage of Latinx undergraduate students at a particular HSI.

To deal with the reality that an institution could have a substantial DIFF percentage if the institution had very low graduate enrollment, we created an indicator that would capture the proportion of graduate students relative to the entire institution. Our density indicator DEN was the total number of graduate students at institution (i) divided by the total number of students at institution (i). If an HSI had a high DEN score, it would indicate that the HSI had more graduate activity, meaning a higher number of graduate programs and graduate students enrolled. Our density indicator was primarily used to reduce our sample to institutions that had a reasonable amount of graduate density (DEN ≤ .90).

Data Analysis

All analysis was done in STATA15 while some visualizations were compiled in R. For the continuous variables, Per_LatinG Per_LatinU DEN DIFF, we computed means and standard deviations, as well as 95% confidence intervals for aggregated means. These statistics were generated across all 10 years, with these statistics primarily used to understand trends in enrollment and for visualization purposes. Our main visualization tool was trend plots that spanned 2005 to 2015.

Limitations

A significant limitation of the study is that we captured the institutions’ HSI eligibility in 2015-2016, even though it may not have been eligible to become an HSI between 2005 and 2014. We did this to maintain a significant sample size at the institutional level, and also because the HSI eligibility is based on a changing percentage of Latinxs at the undergraduate level. In other words, the HSI designation is fluid in nature, so we accepted the 2015-2016 eligibility marker as a good indicator of the institutions’ steady progression toward HSI status, whether it met the eligibility over the 10-year period or not. Second, the analysis is limited by missing or misreported data at the institutional level. Finally, these analyses are descriptive in nature and do not explore or make claims of potential causal pathways for the observed trends. Descriptive research is a key step in identifying unexplored trends in the literature and can serve as a facilitator for future causal work.

Results

First, we considered enrollment trends of Latinx undergraduates. Figure 1 shows the percent of Latinx undergraduates at all graduate HSIs from 2005 to 2015. The trend in enrollment seems clear, with the percentage of Latinx students at these HSIs drastically increasing from 2005 (M = 26.02, SD = 17.32) to 2015 (M = 37.63, SD = 16.76), which is an overall change of 11.63%. Although the overall trend is visible, there was a significant amount of heterogeneity between institutions by Latinx enrollment. For example, in 2015 HSIs ranged from enrolling as little as 16.76% Latinx undergraduates to as much as 95.71%.

Figure 1.

Latinx undergraduate enrollment in HSIs from 2005 to 2015 (n = 140).

Next, we considered enrollment trends of Latinx graduates. Figure 2 shows the percent of Latinx graduate students at the same HSIs from 2005 to 2015. The overall trend in Latinx graduate enrollment from 2005 to 2015 is relatively modest. HSIs only increased their Latinx graduate enrollment from 2005 to 2015 by 6.13% compared with 11.63% of Latinx undergraduate enrollment during the same period. In other words, HSIs have been increasing their number of Latinx undergraduates, but their enrollment of Latinx graduate students has either flat lined or modestly increased.

Figure 2.

Latinx graduate enrollment in HSIs from 2005 to 2015 (n = 140).

We selected an HSRI (an institution with a primary research focus that has multiple graduate programs at the master’s and doctoral levels) on the west coast of the United States to further illustrate the discrepancy that exists between Latinx undergraduate and graduate enrollment at HSIs (Figure 3). This institution reached HSI eligibility in 2013 when its percentage of Latinx undergraduates reached 25%. The overall increase in undergraduate Latinx enrollment was drastic at this HSI, showing that in 2005 there were approximately 14% Latinx undergraduates, which then drastically rose to almost 35% by 2015. In comparison, its graduate Latinx population started at a mere 4% and steadily increased to approximately 12%, a modest increase, but not as drastic as its undergraduate population. Trends like these were common in the database; therefore, we sought to explore these enrollment gaps further.

Figure 3.

Latinx enrollment in one west coast HSI from 2005 to 2015 (n = 1).

Exploring Enrollment Gaps at HSIs

Next, we explored the gaps between Latinx graduate and undergraduate enrollment for the HSIs in our sample using the constructed DIFF measure. Figure 4 shows the DIFF measure from 2005 to 2015, with the reference line at zero indicating no difference in the percentage of Latinx graduate and undergraduate enrollment at HSIs. The further the line veers away from zero, the more significant the discrepancy between graduate and undergraduate Latinx enrollment, while, as noted, a negative DIFF value indicates the percentage of Latinx graduate students is lower than the percentage of Latinx undergraduate students at a particular HSI.

Figure 4.

Percentage difference Latinx enrollment 2005-2015 (n = 140).

We found an overall increase in the discrepancy between Latinx graduate and undergraduate enrollment at HSIs over the 10-year period. Starting in 2005 the gap in enrollment was −8.50% (SD = 7.46), meaning that on average the percentage of Latinx undergraduate students was larger than that of Latinx graduates students at HSIs by 8.50%. Our analysis revealed that this gap widened, reaching an average of −13.53% (SD = 8.45) by 2015, which was an increase of 5.12% in the enrollment gap. Moreover, there was much heterogeneity in our estimates, with our DIFF score ranging from −48.43% to 24.57%. With so much variability between HSIs, we next sought to explore the ICs driving the enrollment gap.

Potential Drivers of Enrollment Gaps in HSIs

Carnegie classification

We began our analysis with a focus on Carnegie classifications, which differentiate institutions by the extent of research and degrees awarded. Table 1 provides frequency counts by Carnegie classification for our sample of HSIs, showing that the majority (n = 75) were classified as “Masters Colleges and Universities.” We further disaggregated our data by grouping HSRIs, which included “Doctoral/Research Universities-Extensive and Intensive,” and HSI-Masters, which included “Masters Colleges and Universities I and II.” Our final groupings included 22 HSRIs, 75 HSI-Masters, and 75 Other HSIs. We found the overall downward trend we had previously observed when our DIFF measure was not disaggregated, yet in aggregating by type, we found a stark pattern. The institutions with the most substantial enrollment gap and steeper decline during the 10-year period were HSRIs with a decrease of 6.71%, followed by HSI-Masters (5.4%), and finally, Other HSIs (–4.05%). These results indicate that the institutions with the most significant enrollment gap between Latinx graduates and undergraduate are HSRIs. Figure 5 shows the enrollment gap trends by our Carnegie groupings.

Table 1.

Frequency Counts of Carnegie Classifications.

Carnegie classification 2015	Frequency	%
Not available	12	8.57
Doctoral/research universities	22	15.72
Masters colleges and universities	75	53.57
Baccalaureate colleges	17	12.14
Associates colleges	4	2.85
Specialized institutions	10	7.15

Figure 5.

Percentage difference Latinx enrollment 2005-2015 by Carnegie classification.

Institutional size

Next, we focused our attention on institutional size. For institutional size, we relied on IPEDS INTSIZE measure, which groups institutions by total enrollment from under 1,000 students to 20,000 and above. The majority of the institutions in our sample (36.4%) were relatively small with total enrollment between 1,000 and 4,999 (n = 51), followed by 5,000 to 9,999 (n = 30). The remaining HSIs had total enrollment from under 1,000 (n = 14); 10,000 to 19,999 (n = 19); to 20,000 and above (n = 26). The majority of HSIs in our sample could be considered small- to medium-sized institutions. To look at the enrollment gaps by size, we graphed the difference in Latinx enrollment trends across 10 years (Figure 6). Institutions seemed to have reasonably similar trends, except for very small HSIs (under 1,000 students). These institutions had an odd pattern. Between 2005 and 2014 this group saw an increase in graduate Latinx enrollment, but this effect fell back to normal levels by 2015. By grouping by institution size, the group trends showed a decrease in our DIFF measure, with the most substantial change occurring with the largest institutions (20,000 and above; −6.62%), and the smallest for modestly sized institutions. These results would indicate that larger schools seem to have the most enrollment inequities.

Figure 6.

Percentage difference Latinx enrollment 2005-2015 by institution size.

Geographic region

Finally, we analyzed the geographic region in which our sample HSIs were located using IPEDS OBE_Region variable which subsets the United States into nine distinct regions based on geographic location. For example, for a HSI to be in the Southwest it would need to be located in one of the following states: AZ, NM, OK, and TX. Because of the geographical clustering that HSIs seem to exhibit, we limited our sample to only regions that had more than one institution within the region. The majority of our HSIs were in the Far West (n = 49) and the Southwest (n = 34), followed by the Mideast (n = 19), Great Lakes (n = 8), and Southeast (n = 9). When looking at the trends of each region, we found a region that veered from the typical downward trend (Figure 7). Institutions in the Southeast saw a positive change in their enrollment gap from 2005 to 2015 of 4.48%. This region is the only region that managed to close the gap between their Latinx graduate and undergraduate enrollment.

Figure 7.

Percentage difference Latinx enrollment 2005-2015 by geographic region.

Discussion

This study shed light on the inequities in enrollment of Latinx graduate students at eligible graduate HSIs. More importantly, we explored the institutional-level drivers of these inequities. We found that HSRIs had the greatest disparities in enrollment, despite the fact that these institutions have the most to offer Latinx students with regard to institutional resources and capacity for training graduate students. Garcia (2018) found a similar pattern in her study, as one doctoral institution with 24% Latinx undergraduate enrollment only enrolling 9% Latinx graduate students. By size, the largest graduate HSIs seemed to have the largest disparities in enrollment, while very small HSIs, oddly, were above equitable levels for a majority of the time period we examined. Although we did not explore the correlation between Carnegie type and size, the HSRIs in the sample were also likely the largest institutions, simply by the nature of large research universities. As such, some of these patterns may still be attributed to the Carnegie type. Finally, by locality, HSIs in the Southeast seemed to be above equity for Latinx graduate enrollment, with no clear indication as to why.

Implications for Practice, Research, and Policy

In practice, graduate HSIs should be concerned with Latinx graduate enrollment gaps. First, graduate students at HSIs can serve as institutional actors shaping the experiences of Latinx undergraduate students by serving as their teaching assistants, lab instructors, and general role models (Marin & Pereschica, 2018). As noted by Marin and Pereschica (2018), Latinx undergraduates might not distinguish between a graduate student and a faculty member when it comes to their own experiences with these key institutional actors; therefore, increasing the number of Latinx graduate students at HSIs could be as vital as increasing the representation of Latinx faculty, as both may contribute to the academic self-concept of Latinx students (Cuellar, 2014), the in-class and out-of-class validation of students (Alcantar & Hernandez, 2018), and the overall academic success and persistence of Latinxs (Hagedorn et al., 2007; Torres, 2006). In other words, enrolling an equitable number of Latinx graduate students can enhance the experiences and outcomes of Latinx undergraduates.

This leads to a second implication for practice. With the representation of Latinx faculty in U.S. postsecondary institutions being much smaller than the representation of Latinx undergraduates (5% and 19% respectively; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2018), there is a dire need to address the Latinx pipeline into the professoriate. Graduate HSIs have the potential to address this national need for more Latinx faculty. Moreover, there are huge disparities in Latinx faculty working at HSIs when compared with the student population (Contreras, 2018; Gonzales, 2015), which can be addressed by HSIs themselves. HSIs can train graduate students to become future faculty. Some may even consider developing “grow your own” faculty programs, as a way to address the need for more Latinx faculty at HSIs.

Finally, graduate HSIs have the potential to increase the economic mobility of Latinxs through graduate education. People who earn graduate degrees earn more money in the long term than those who only earn a bachelor’s degree (Carnevale et al., 2015; Graduate Management Admission Council, 2018). Yet fewer Latinxs earn graduate degrees (Carnevale & Fasules, 2017), which should be a concern for HSIs seeking to truly serve their Latinx populations. We urge graduate HSIs, and especially HSRIs, to think more critically about how to serve graduate students, not just undergraduates, starting with enrollment and leading into training and development that will lead to greater economic mobility.

This study also has implications for research. Mostly, there is a dearth of research exploring the experiences of Latinx graduate students at graduate HSIs and their role in contributing to the institution’s ability to become Latinx-serving. Even further, research has not adequately explored graduate enrollment as an indicator of HSI servingness for Latinxs who attend HSIs. Solórzano (1995) found that Chicanxs who earned doctorate degrees between 1980 and 1990 were likely to attend an HSI as an undergraduate, while recent reports suggest that HSIs are on the list of top producers of Latinxs with graduate degrees (Excelencia in Education, 2012). Future research should explore graduate enrollment at HSIs even further, taking note of the patterns that this study has revealed about enrollment of Latinxs at graduate HSIs. This may be done using more robust quantitative models and/or mixed-methods approaches. This study was purely descriptive, as we needed to first understand the problem, yet the patterns and trends are clear, and we are now calling on researchers to examine the disparities even further.

Finally, there are policy considerations. There should be a closer examination of the incentive structures at HSIs, exploring whether there would be a shift in graduate enrollment if federal policy incentivized increasing graduate enrollment. This may include an exploration of the Department of Education’s Title V, Part B HSI grants, which are intended to promote postbaccalaureate opportunities for Latinxs. Moreover, policy analyses should explore the role of financial aid and graduate funding in increasing (or stagnating) the enrollment of Latinx graduate students, while also accounting for institutional selectivity and resources, which have been found to influence a number of outcomes at HSIs such as graduation (Garcia, 2013) and wage earnings (Park, Flores, & Ryan, 2018). Graduate school is an expensive endeavor and funding is predominantly reserved to a few PhD students at institutions (Golde, 1998), usually leaving master’s students with little (or no) funding. Variation in financial aid may exist across graduate HSIs, which may contribute to the inequities in graduate enrollment we observed. Future policy analyses should explore how funding models and financial aid distribution at HSIs are connected to enrollment of Latinx graduate students at these HSIs. Although institutional-level policies may alter graduate enrollment at individual HSIs, this issue must also be addressed at the federal level, with organizations like Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) having the ability to advocate for more aid for Latinx graduate students if it shown to increase graduate enrollment at HSIs.

Conclusion

The results of this study bring to question what it means to be an HSI, and challenge HSIs to think about their role in serving the entire population of Latinxs, including graduate students. The findings reveal that there are disparities in the number of Latinx graduates enrolling in HSIs compared with undergraduates. Shedding light on this reality, we call on HSI researchers, practitioners, and legislators to begin addressing this disparity while recognizing that graduate students can and should shape, define, and contribute what it means to be Latinx-serving. As a federally defined construct, the HSI designation and subsequent identity are socially constructed, fluid, and transitional (Garcia, 2017; Garcia, Ramirez, Patrón, & Cristobal, 2019); therefore, it can evolve over time to include graduate education.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Gina A. Garcia

Alberto Guzman-Alvarez

Author Biographies

Gina A. Garcia is an associate professor in the Department of Administrative and Policy Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. She explores the ways in which Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) embrace and enact an organizational identity for serving minoritized populations, as well as identity development of Latinx college students.

Alberto Guzman-Alvarez is a PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Education where he is the recipient of the K. LeRoy Irvis Fellowship. His work focuses on quantitative methods and their application to educational policy.

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