Photo: GettyImages
Latinos are getting their learn on.
From the Pew Hispanic Center:
“For the first time, the number of 18- to 24-year-old Hispanics enrolled in college exceeded 2 million and reached a record 16.5% share of all college enrollments. Hispanics are the largest minority group on the nation’s college campuses, a milestone first achieved last year (Fry, 2011). But as their growth among all college-age students continues to outpace other groups, Hispanics are now, for the first time, the largest minority group among the nation’s four-year college and university students. And for the first time, Hispanics made up one-quarter (25.2%) of 18- to 24-year-old students enrolled in two-year colleges.”
Not only that, but the Pew Hispanic Center also found that Latinos now make up one out of every four children in the K-12 public school system.
More than the group’s sheer population growth, the rising number of young Latinos receiving a good education augurs future success for the Latino community.
“Education,” said Horace Mann, “is the great equalizer of the conditions of men.” Monumental thinkers from Plato to John Adams have agreed. A good education places a person on equal footing with any king or duke or silver-spooned hedge fund manager. In fact, knowledge provides more security to a person’s well-being than money, because while a love of money has left countless would-be millionaires penniless, a love of learning never left a would-be professor destitute of thought.
Above all, and perhaps more crucial for Latinos, a decent education provides the tools for better understanding the world outside and inside yourself. “Master yourself,” an old proverb tells us, “and you will master the world.” Education is the mother of opportunity, especially in America — which makes our failing education system such a travesty. Knowledge allows an individual to see the socioeconomic ladder clearly and gives them the strength to climb it; ignorance, on the other hand, keeps people in the fog we’re born into — they may sense a ladder in front of them, but they can’t see it, much less climb it.
More than the lagging economy, more than immigration reform, resurrecting America’s moribund education system must be top priority for the Latino community. If we commit to enriching ourselves through knowledge, it will prove to be a panacea — making us higher in our minds, and our obstacles seemingly lower.
About Hector Luis Alamo, Jr.
Finally an article that makes sense and that doesn’t go left or right! I like it and I agree 100% with it! Let’s have more of these please.
I think BL should do more articles on our unique Latino food ways and customs. That would bring a lot of us closer together regardless of ideology. Just for Central American cooking there could be volumes written!
Mario ,I 100 percent agre with you on this.this is what I have tried to teach my sons and daughters as they grew.
One thing that minorities or hispanics need to start educating themselves in, is in the area of Finance!!! Forget the Liberal Arts studies and start figuring out how money and the actual economy works! That will put more people on real, actual footing!
Excellent blog post! We share your vision and believe that education is the answer!
@Robert I could not agree with you more. I have a degree in English lit and a minor in music. Thank god for law school.
I however believe that the great equalizer is nepotism. El que no tiene padrino no se bautiza. But education allows you opportunity to succeed when given a chance.
I think thats why so many foreign born and first generation latinos in USA go into the classic professions. You don’t need a lot of help to succeed.
When I first liked BL I thought it would be a place to get people involved in educating our youth and get some Latino nepotism going
and you found out it was an agenda driven place – like the Latino wing of the Obama propaganda machine.
Brilliant thoughts — more power to you.