Pew Hispanic Center Study: More Latino, Hispanic Teens Entering College At Record Pace

It appears that Latinos in high school are starting to enter college at a pace higher than in many years.

According to a recent report from the Pew Hispanic Center, seven in 10 Latino high school graduates in the class of 2012 went to college. The statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau compiled for the center showed that 69 percent of Hispanic high school graduates from the 2012 class has enrolled in college.

In fact, according to the study, not only have more Hispanic students from high school enrolled in college over the last four years, but they are actually surpassing white high school students entering college since 2008.

Census data compiled by the center also showed that the number of Hispanic high school students dropping out of high school has also dropped to a record low since the onset of the recession. In 2011, only 14 percent of Hispanic 16- to 24-year-olds were high school dropouts, which was down by half from the level at which they were dropping out of high school in 2000, at 28 percent. By contrast, the number of white students dropping out of high school during that time fell from seven percent in 2000 to five percent in 2011, only a two-percent difference.

While the study did not get into a full in-depth analysis of why the numbers were rising among young Latinos entering college, the co-authors of the study, Paul Taylor and Richard Fry, speculated that the recession, which has made it difficult for Latinos to find jobs, may have been a prompt for them to re-enter college in order to better compete for jobs.

"Since the onset of the recession at the end of 2007, unemployment among Latinos ages 16 to 24 has gone up by seven percentage points, compared with a five percentage point rise among white youths. With jobs harder to find, more Latino youths may have chosen to stay in school longer," the study notes.

The study's authors also suggested that Latinos families placing a high value on college education could also be a factor. A 2009 Pew Hispanic study was cited, illustrating that 88 percent  of Latinos ages 16 and older agreed that a college degree was needed to get ahead in life.

Yet, another theory on that comes in the suggestion that the values of young Latinos are changing. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, dean of UCLA's Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, told National Public Radio that the new influx of Latino teens becoming college students could be part of a generational shift.

"I think the story here is really the story of the maturing of the second generation," he says. "These are U.S.-born kids, and these are kids who have higher ambitions. They want to do better than their parents. And they're connecting with colleges."