Hispanic-Serving Institutions in American Higher Education: Their Origin, and Present and Future Challenges

This is the first book to exclusively address Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), filling a major gap in both the research on these institutions and in our understanding of their approaches to learning and their role in supporting all students while focusing on Hispanic students. Born out of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1992 and are classified as such if their enrollment of Latino students account for a quarter of their undergraduate enrollment, the number of HSIs and their impact in higher education is growing. Today there are approximately 370 HSIs, 277 emerging HSIs, and their numbers are steadily increasing. Given the projected growth of the Latino population, and HSIs’ record of advancing the success for Hispanic students in STEM fields, as well as of graduating nearly a third of all Hispanic bachelor’s degree recipients, their work has important implications for higher education at large.

Written by leading and rising scholars on HSIs, this book offers insight into the complexity of these institutions. It not only addresses historic policy origins, but also describes the experiences of various student populations served, faculty issues (i.e., governance, diversity, work/life experience, etc.), the impact of student affairs in advancing student development, and considers funding and philanthropy efforts. The book also critically examines challenges that many of these institutions face – disjointed mission statements regarding support of their Latino/a student populations, governance structures that support the status quo, and the financial incentive to achieve HSI designation that may not correlate with enhancing the climate for Latinos. This book touches on the many facets of HSIs, painting an organic mosaic of institutions in position to advance Latino postsecondary progress, both chronicling the contemporary challenges that these institutions face while also looking to their future.