Excelencia in Education has a new resource all about Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs).
The organization has been tracking HSIs for 20 years and has now compiled the information gathered into an HSI factbook. It contains facts about the number of HSIs and their growth since 1994-95, as well as data on emerging HSIs and HSIs with graduate programs.
“Sharing an annual list of HSIs broadly informs the field of where Hispanics are enrolling,” said Deborah Santiago, co-founder and CEO of Excelencia, in a press release.
Growth of HSIs
According to the factbook, there were 600 HSIs in the United States in 2022-23 – up from 189 in 1994-95. HSIs have 25% or more undergraduate Hispanic student full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment.
These institutions are geographically concentrated, located in 28 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. California has the most HSIs (172), followed by Texas (111), Puerto Rico (56) and New York (39).
HSIs represent about 20% of institutions of higher education, but they enroll 63% of all Latino undergraduates. And 46% of undergraduate students enrolled at HSIs are Hispanic.
Though the majority of HSIs are four-year institutions – 60% — most of the top 10 HSIs in the U.S. are primarily associate-degree granting institutions. Miami Dade College is number 1; 71% of its 47,245 students are Latino. Three Texas colleges — Dallas College, the Lone Star College System and South Texas College – are in the top 5. El Paso and San Jacinto community colleges also made the top 10, as did California’s Bakersfield College and East Los Angeles College.
The number of HSIs continues to grow. There are 412 Emerging HSIs, or eHSIs, which are institutions with 15-24.9% undergraduate full-time Hispanic enrollment. The eHSI categorization was developed by Excelencia to track colleges approaching the 25% Latino student enrollment threshold.
The evolution of HSIs can be tracked visually through Excelencia’s interactive StoryMap.
Excelencia also tracked HSIs offering graduate-degree programs. In 2022-23, 252 HSIs offered graduate programs, compared to 48 HSIs with graduate programs in 1994-95. Latino graduate student enrollment at these HSIs has significantly increased, too. There were 139,010 Latino graduate students enrolled at HSIs in 2022-23, up from 23,308 in 1994-95.
