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 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 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 its historic policy origins, 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, student experiences of philanthropy efforts, and future challenges that these growing number of institutions face. Developed with administrators, scholars, practitioners, student affairs staff, and policymakers in mind, this book touches on the many facets of HSIs, painting an organic mosaic of institutions dedicated to the postsecondary advancement of Latino students, chronicling the contemporary challenges that these institutions face while lamenting their future.