November 28, 2003

Academe's Hispanic Future

The nation's largest minority group faces big obstacles in higher education, and colleges struggle to find the right ways to help

By Peter Schmidt

If they haven't already, college professors and administrators should try to get accustomed to pronouncing names like Alejandro, Jorge, Nuria, and Pilar.

Hispanics have become the largest minority group in the United States and now represent about 13 percent of the country's population. They account for about half of the population growth in recent years and are expected, given immigration and their relatively high fertility rates, to represent a much larger share of the population