For over two decades, I have been Executive-Director, and sole staff, of a non-profit foundation seeking to advance the educational aspirations of students in and around the 20,000 population, predominantly Hispanic town of Dover, New Jersey. Located about 40 miles due west from midtown Manhattan, Dover has an urban rhythm to it, while economically it is the hole in the affluent donut of Morris County. My “Thoughts from Twenty Years in the Educational Trenches” are summarized in a book subtitled, “A Unique College Guide for Latino Students and Their Supporters.” In addition, there is a slimmed-down version, the Latino College Assistance Guide, in both English and Spanish.

The seven-part compilation of observations which follows, excerpted in part from the above, is the informational background which has led me to conclude that higher education aspiration levels for Hispanic students would be more fully actualized with a more proactive approach and a deeper examination of the “I” factor, individual responsibility.

I say this while fully recognizing that external factors — the challenges and functional vagaries of the immigration system and the institutional obtuseness of many colleges, to name two – are valid constraints. They are not amenable to being changed by or for a lone individual.

However, the clear existence of said impediments should not prevent personal follow-through on those components of the educational picture where individual commitment can prove successful.

On to Part One.

PART ONE: Educational Characteristics of Latino Students aided by the WKBJ Foundation

When I think of the Latino student in my office, I see a young person who, in no order of importance, is more likely than the average student seeking higher education to:

• Have attended a subpar public high school
• Be the first in his/her family to attend college
• Be in a situation where the use of debt has been shunned
• Have a family involved in most decisions of each of its members
• Attend a two-year college if going on to higher education
• Attend a university close to home, if enrolling in a four-year school
• Be relatively new to the United States
• Be surrounded by people who have a strong belief in fate
• Have an innate advantage in being both bilingual and bicultural
• Have parents who grew up in a country with a national education system
• Have “DNA” skewed more toward collaboration than American individualism
• Find, upon visiting his home country after a decade away, that his psyche has shifted to    that of being more like an American
• Be fully conversant with every new iDevice, but not equally likely to have non-school reading material at home
• Revere futbol, a fascinating game long on process but short on closure
• Be Catholic
• Experience family health problems which hurt the student’s ability to stay in school
• Be in a family with below-average income
• Understand that if he or she succeeds educationally, the benefits accrue to themselves first, but to their family and future generations as well
• Wonder on dark days whether returning to their home country, which they may no longer know well, is the more comfortable place to live
• Be with people who have come to the United States with an inadequate understanding of its many financial and educational challenges
• Ponder the pros and cons of a “business” marriage when the years go by, with no immigration reform, and falling in love with a documented spouse wanes in probability
• Come from a culture where the Ps—priests, parents, police, politicians—are more important to an individual’s daily life
• Have inexpensive cars with big mechanic bills that can hurt college affordability

Obviously excluded from the above list are DOCUMENTATION ISSUES, which “simply” affect every aspect of the Hispanic student’s life: education, aspiration level, language acquisition, career path, role in the family, relationship to friends, self-identity. The subject of “papers” is best treated separately, with an in-depth analysis of all the variables.

Part Two will delineate qualitative characteristics of Latino students.

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