Commentaries on the San Antonio Report present house for our neighborhood to share views and provide options to urgent native points. The views expressed on this commentary belong to the creator alone.
Once I sat in Spanish courses taught by Dr. Antonio Rigual at Our Woman of the Lake College in 2010, I had no concept the deep private affect his imaginative and prescient to advertise Hispanic Serving Establishments (HSIs) would have in my life.
My alma mater is the birthplace of HSIs. After a 1985 go to to Xerox headquarters searching for assist for a “Middle for Hispanic Larger Schooling” at OLLU, Dr. Rigual developed the concept that turned the Hispanic Affiliation of Schools and Universities (HACU), making OLLU the primary HSI within the nation. HSI is now a designation that covers greater than 600 schools and universities across the nation that serve giant numbers of Latino college students. These very important academic establishments, the place 67% of all Latino school college students are matriculated, are underneath assault.
The Hispanic Serving Establishment federal designation is awarded to degree-granting schools with at the least 25% of Hispanic or Latino college students enrolled.
San Antonio native school officers say the widespread false impression is that these {dollars} solely profit Hispanic or Latino college students, whereas in actuality the packages created utilizing these funds are open to all college students.
The most recent assaults on training successfully abdicated all federal accountability for the education of greater than 73 million Okay-12 college students nationwide and severely restricted mortgage eligibility and debt forgiveness for superior levels in fields dominated by ladies, together with nursing, training and social work.
HSIs weren’t spared, lately receiving a significant blow from this administration, which not solely refused to defend towards a lawsuit searching for to have HSIs declared “discriminatory,” but in addition withdrew over $350 million in federal grants important to supporting training for all college students at these faculties, not simply Latinos.
In complete, there are 12 private and non-private schools designated as HSIs in San Antonio: Our Woman of the Lake College, Texas A&M College-San Antonio, all 5 schools underneath Alamo Schools District, St. Mary’s College, and the now-merged College of Texas at San Antonio and College of Texas Well being Science Middle at San Antonio.
HSIs have made the desires of numerous younger individuals a actuality, together with mine. Two years after taking Dr. Rigual’s class, I acquired a HACU internship that will open doorways I by no means thought doable.
The internship positioned me with the USDA Forest Service as a media intern, coaching in Washington, D.C., earlier than heading to Florida. For a first-generation scholar like me, whose household couldn’t afford unpaid internships or expensive summer season housing, this chance was life altering. It was solely my second time on an airplane, and it gave me a foot within the door to launch my profession in communications.
These abilities and experiences constructed the muse for each job I’ve had since. At the moment, I’m the supervisor of media relations and advertising and marketing on the civil rights group LatinoJustice PRLDEF. And in a full-circle second, my group now represents HACU in courtroom as we intervene in Tennessee and College students for Truthful Admissions v. U.S. Division of Schooling, a federal lawsuit that seeks to dismantle the HSI program. The very program that gave me an opportunity I might not have had in any other case is now underneath menace and I’m utilizing the abilities I first discovered due to OLLU and HACU to defend it.
With clueless or merciless timing, the Division of Schooling introduced throughout HSI Week final September that it had slashed funding that helps HSIs. Days later, the Division of Schooling introduced it might redirect $495 million in funding to Traditionally Black Schools and Universities (HBCUs) and tribal schools, very important establishments that deserve sturdy, sustained assist. This isn’t a zero-sum sport. HSIs shouldn’t must compete towards HBCUs for assist.
Congress created the HSI Program to supply vital assets to high schools and universities that already enroll giant numbers of Hispanic college students. Nationally, greater than 5.6 million college students of all backgrounds profit from their packages and eight of the highest 10 schools and universities within the 2024 Social Mobility Index had been HSIs. These successes are not any accident; they reveal why we’d like sturdy funding in faculties that serve traditionally under-resourced college students.
This makes the current funding cuts much more devastating on a private stage. OLLU has one of many highest percentages of Hispanic scholar enrollment within the nation and is a prime producer of Hispanic graduates with grasp’s levels.
When Dr. Rigual first convened leaders from 18 universities in 1986 to create HACU, he knew one thing wanted to be performed in regards to the marginalization of Hispanic training. He constructed a motion that grew from one campus within the U.S., to Puerto Rico, Latin America and Spain.
Dr. Rigual and HSIs opened doorways for me that my household’s monetary state of affairs might need in any other case saved closed. They eliminated obstacles and ready me to succeed. With out HACU and OLLU, I might not be the place I’m immediately. Now, I really feel an obligation to make sure those self same doorways stay open for future generations. That’s why I’m talking out to guard the establishments that modified my life.
