UCLA's Pursuit of Hispanic-Serving Institution Status: Requirements, Goals, and Implications

UCLA's commitment to becoming a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) is rooted in the belief that a diverse student body enriches the educational experience for all. As a public university in California, a state with pronounced demographic shifts, UCLA recognizes its duty and privilege to welcome and serve all of the diverse populations that make up the state. The announcement only reaffirmed the importance of UCLA’s aim to achieve federal designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) by 2025.

Understanding Hispanic-Serving Institutions

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) are a category of Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). To be federally designated an HSI, 25% of students at the university must identify as Latinx. In addition to this enrollment threshold, HSI designation requires not only meeting the enrollment numbers, but other requirements as well.

UC’s HSI and AANAPISI Campuses

Five of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses are currently designated Hispanic-serving institutions: UC Irvine, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz. All nine of UC’s nine undergraduate campuses are currently Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions: UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UCLA, UC Merced, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and UC Santa Cruz. The UC campuses recognize that by working together, they can achieve greater outcomes than by operating individually.

UCLA's Journey Towards HSI Designation

UCLA has publicly announced its goal of achieving federal designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) by 2025. As of fall 2022, UCLA reported 22.2% Latino enrollment. While UCLA will work hard to boost enrollment of qualified Latinx students to 25 percent of all undergraduates over the next four years - a requirement to qualify for HSI status - we recognize that simply enrolling greater numbers of Latinx students is not enough.

Key Initiatives and Investments

To achieve this goal, UCLA is undertaking a number of key initiatives:

Faculty and Research: Over the next seven years, UCLA will provide 15 new faculty lines for individuals whose teaching, scholarship, and/or mentoring has ties to Latinx experiences. Deans of schools and divisions may match these appointments for a total of up to 30 new scholars. In addition, UCLA will support 20 two-year postdoctoral fellowships over the next five years for work related to Latinx issues and establish a new funding pool of $250,000 per year over five years for seed research grants for basic and applied scholarship on Latinx populations.
Staff Support: UCLA will commit five years of central campus funding towards eight full-time staff positions and one half-time staff position to further support Latinx life and scholarship at UCLA. These positions will include managerial and administrative support for the CSRC, the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies, and the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative; counselors in the Academic Advancement Program; and a retention coordinator in the Center for Community College Partnerships.
Student Support: The Office of Student Affairs will consult with members of Latinx student organizations to assess student support needs and determine the best means of filling them.
Advisory Role: A new faculty advisory position, Special Advisor to the Chancellor on Latina/o/x Affairs, has been created to provide guidance on these efforts and offer senior-level counsel on other topics pertinent to Latinx Bruins.

The HSI Task Force Report

UCLA’s Hispanic-Serving Institution Task Force has published its report, Cultivating the Seeds of Change: Becoming a Hispanic-Serving Institution, setting out seven recommendations for achieving federal HSI designation and making a strong institutional commitment to advancing undergraduate and graduate student success.

The UCLA Latino Alumni Association (ULAA) are a passionate group of Bruin volunteers who are committed to supporting UCLA's Latino alumni, students and friends, and are an active partner in ensuring UCLA reaches this ambitious goal. ULAA president, Cesar Pacheco recognizes the group's unique position to bring people together, stating, “We’re a conduit for change.

Recommendations for Achieving HSI Status

The report outlines seven key recommendations:

Improve Latinx Access: Improve Latinx access to graduate and professional programs, extend opportunities for engagement in research, and ensure mentorship support.
Engage Campus Units: Engage campus units to implement new strategies to achieve HSI federal designation and provide support for the coordination of efforts.
Improve Admissions: Improve admissions and yield strategies for Latinx, low-income, and first-generation students; report admissions and enrollment results by race/ethnicity, low-income, and first-generation status; report and monitor progress toward 25% Latinx enrollment.
Improve Financial Aid: Improve financial aid and timeliness of scholarship support so that UCLA is a more affordable option for Latinx and low-income students and their families.
Prioritize Efforts to Retain Students: Prioritize efforts to retain students, monitor progress, and study the institutional barriers that prevent students from earning their degrees in a timely fashion. Implement equity-minded initiatives to ensure the institution is supporting students toward retention in the major and degree completion.
Improve Curriculum: Improve the curriculum and advising approaches to be culturally responsive to the needs and strengths of Latinx, low-income, and first generation students.
Latinx Student Resources: Establish a Latinx Student Resource Center that can provide culturally responsive support for students and information for campus educators. Build awareness, affirm Latinx students, and improve experiences campus-wide.

The Significance of HSI Designation

HSI designation would be an important step in a movement that started in the Civil Rights era to increase Latino enrollment and expand educational opportunities. HSI status has also been shown to enhance campus relationships among students, improve academic performance and raise graduation rates.

Financial Benefits

With HSI designation, UCLA would receive federal grants to enhance educational programs for Latinx students, to the benefit of the entire campus community. One major aspect of an HSI designation is being qualified for a large range of grants that are to be used “to expand educational opportunities for, and improve the attainment of, Hispanic students,” according to Block’s Dec.

Read also: Navigating Tech Breadth at UCLA

Impact on Graduation Rates

Looking at the graphs below, UCLA has on average the highest Latino graduation rate (86.08%) compared to the other UC schools from 2011 to 2019. UCLA’s yearly Latino graduation rates have not changed significantly since 2011 while some HSI’s such as UC Santa Barbara and UC Riverside have experienced increased Latino graduation rates. However, variables such as the selectivity of institutions and their support for Latino students can be confounded when looking purely at graduation rates and changes in graduation rates. Another metric that can be evaluated is the gap between white and Latino graduation rates.

Broader Institutional Benefits

Denise Pacheco, M.A. ’04, Ph.D. ’11, is senior director of Diversity Programs and Initiatives for UCLA Alumni Affairs. She says, “The pursuit of becoming an HSI does not diminish UCLA’s equally important commitment to increasing representation for all students. When we become an HSI, it provides an infrastructure that will support the success of all students, and especially communities who are not appropriately represented on the campus.

Challenges and Considerations

Even though Los Angeles’ population is 48.5% Hispanic or Latino, UCLA fails to reflect this and is 18% Hispanic/Latino. “A lot of students are really competent and capable in predominantly Latinx high schools,” said Flores when asked if she thinks UCLA could reach their HSI goal by 2025. Hurtado said that 2025 was a good goal for UCLA. “The only colleges I ever saw reaching out to my high school were community colleges,” said Flores, who attended a predominantly Latinx high school. “I think UCs are always scary, especially if you come from a high school where you’re like, ‘Oh, only three people got admitted last year.’ It’s really discouraging.

Historical Context

In 1993, students, faculty and community members engaged in protests, including a two-week hunger strike, to advocate for the establishment of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCLA. In the ʼ90s, the Regents of the University of California passed SP-1 and SP-2, which was followed by California Proposition 209, to prohibit preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in higher education.

Potential Legal Challenges

As the HSI program expands, two possible separate and distinct levels of constitutional scrutiny may emerge if the program’s constitutionality is challenged in court. First: Can the federal government constitutionally fund the HSI program, thus discriminating among institutions expressly based on the racial balances of their student bodies? Indirectly, through the HSI program, the federal government allocates or denies funds to the schools of students based on their races. Supreme Court has long held that the Constitution imposes such an equal protection limitation on the actions of the federal government.

Read also: Understanding UCLA Counselors

The Role of the UCLA Latino Alumni Association (ULAA)

To invest in Latinx students, ULAA hosts career panels, networking and mentoring opportunities. ULAA’s Orgulloso mentorship program matches alumni with ULAA scholarship recipients and other Latinx students for one year, to help with professional development and personal growth. ULAA alumni share stories and provide insight from their personal experiences. Through engagement, they celebrate students and invest in the future generations.

In 2022-23, ULAA raised a record-breaking $241,000, bringing them closer to their fundraising goal of a $1 million scholarship endowment. This included $36,130 from a successful Spark crowdfunding campaign.

Examples of Other Institutions Pursuing HSI Status

In addition to UCLA, many other colleges and universities are actively pursuing the HSI designation. In December 2020, UCLA “announc[ed] the goal of having UCLA designated as an HSI by 2025. Similarly, in September 2021, the University of Northern Colorado said it hoped to increase its Hispanic population from 23.5% to 25% of the student population.

When Florida Atlantic University became an HSI in 2017, the provost said, “our recent designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution will help us to further our efforts to bring new programs and new grants that will allow us to truly serve this important and growing population in Florida. In 2018, ED granted Georgia’s Dalton State College HSI status. The University of Texas at Austin launched an HSI Transition committee in 2019 to “establish the university’s timeline for likelihood of HSI status and the timeline for application for the eligibility and associated grant funding,” among other goals.

tags: #UCLA #Hispanic #Serving #Institution #status #requirements