***PRESS RELEASE***
Springfield Ill. – More Latinos are going to college, but they’re losing ground in the labor market, according to a new report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
Researchers found more Latinos are getting education beyond high school, but only 21 percent have college degrees, compared to 32 percent of blacks and 45 percent of whites.
According to Anthony Carnevale, the center’s director and the report’s lead author, relatively few Latinos are enrolling in more selective colleges that have higher graduation rates.
“They’re stuck in the middle,” he states. “That is, they’re in the two-year colleges in certificates more than degrees. And relative to their growing share of the population, they’re actually losing ground.”
Education isn’t the only factor. The report says in Illinois, white women who have only a high school diploma, or who haven’t graduated at all, still earn more than Latina women.
The research found Latinos generally have the lowest median income of all groups.
Carnevale notes, for those with some post-secondary education, the pay gap gets smaller, but income still lags behind white workers.
“Irrespective of what major Latinos enroll in, what college they enroll in, whether they graduate or not, in the end, they always make less than whites,” he points out.
The report offers some good news. It says since the 1990s, high school graduation rates have risen faster for Latinos than for their black or white peers.
Carnevale adds more than 100,000 Latino students have test scores that could get them into some top colleges in the country.
“They’ve done their part,” he stresses. “The issue is whether we will have the kinds of supports that are required for lower-income, minority families to make that leap into the college ranks, especially at the B.A. level.”
In some high-wage occupations, the report says race-based earnings gaps between whites and Latinos with at least a bachelor’s degree essentially vanish.
Press Release Courtesy of Illinois News Connection