Fostering diversity at institutes of higher education has long been the goal of many institutions and thus has been at the forefront of policy making decisions. Those who support the aims and principles of diversity, as well as those who decry them, agree that campuses face a variety of challenges in their efforts to make education a truly inclusive option. However, inequality in America has permeated into too many avenues of life. Most obvious is financial inequality: wages, worker benefits, median salaries of average workers vs. CEO’s and here in Texas, educational inequality is setting the stage for intellectual segregation and genocide. Why? Because not being able to afford a college education is vastly different from not being able to excel at one.
Last month, the new Democratically lead Congress provide relief to current and future college students when the House by a vote of 356 to 71, with all Democrats and 124 Republicans, passed H.R. 5, the College Student Relief Act of 2007, the bill that would cut the interest rates on student loans.
However, when it comes to higher education here in Texas, Gov Rick Perry marches to a different beat. Earlier this week, he proposed to increase the education gap where rich white kids will continue go to college un-phased and reap the aids of a degree, while poor minorities can’t.
According to the Houston Chronicle, Gov Perry is looking to overhaul of the state’s financial aid programs, by forcing students to graduate faster. Under his new plan, all higher education grants, which typically don’t have to be repaid, would automatically become zero-interest loans for those who do not graduate within the specified time of their certificate or degree program. The policy Gov Perry just sign would penalize students who take longer to obtain a degree. In other words, college students had better not change their majors here in Texas.
Perry also proposes to merge Texas Grant, Texas Educational Opportunity Grant and Tuition Equalizations Grant programs into the “Tuition Assistance Grant.” He also proposed to allocate federal funds intended to go higher education grant programs to the 4-year old Texas B-On-Time Loan program, a program that is to give eligible Texas students no-interest loans to attend colleges and universities in Texas. But there is a catch, the student must have a “3.0 grade point average in high school and maintain a 3.0 grade point average, up from 2.5” to qualify, according to LubbockOnline. Other parts of the program a student must complete 24 credit hours a year to remain in the program. In short, a student must be enrolled full-time. To put it another way, students who are part-time are not qualified.
Given that the cost of a college education is continually increasing and attaining a higher education degree is more important than ever, Latino student participation in financial aid is critical. According to Dr. Amaury Nora, professor at the University of Houston, studies have shown that low-income groups are “more sensitive to changes in tuition than are upper-income groups.” The problem is it has already been found that Latinos drop out or take extra years to graduate from college is because of financial reasons more than for academic reasons. When federal aid cuts have occurred, they have disproportionally affected Latino students. When it comes to financing a college education, there are four main ways: grants, loans, work-study, and personal contributions. Although the percentage of Latino students receiving financial aid for college is at an all-time high, Latinos still receive the least financial aid ($5,999) of any ethnic group, according to the the Hispanic Scholarship Fund Institute (HSF). Other frightening findings are:
- Sector: Latinos received the least federal aid ($4,644) and the least non-federal aid ($3,328) of any ethnic group.
- Grants: Latinos received the smallest grant awards ($3,486) for their education of any ethnic group. Latinos received the smallest federal grants ($2,113) of any ethnic group, except whites, and received by far the smallest non-federal grants ($3,017) of any ethnic group.
- Loans: Latinos received larger loans ($4,168) than African Americans ($4,070) or Asian/Pacific Islanders ($4,073).
- Work-Study: Latinos received the lowest work-study awards ($1,152) of any ethnic group.
- “Other aid”: Latinos received higher awards ($4,527) than African Americans ($4,147), but less than whites ($5,070) or Asian/Pacific Islanders ($5,364). This disparity is consistent in “other” federal aid ($6,047) and non-federal aid ($3,475).
With Gov. Perry’s plan, he will make sure Latinos continue to be the lowest group to receive financial aid.
Deborah Santiago, vice president for policy and research for Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit located in Washington, D.C., reports that Latinos are less likely to take out loans than whites, blacks and undergraduates in general. The percentage of Asians seeking loans is even less than among Latinos – 24.8% compared with 29.8% – but their need for loans is somewhat diminished because they tend to receive more scholarships and financial aid than other groups. In other words, not only are Latinos less likely to take out a loan, they tend to receive larger loans.
It is bad enough American consumers owe over a trillion dollars in consumer debt, Perry’s plan will only add to the financial and emotional toll excessive debt can create for low- and middle-income families, especially minorities if college students are not able to finish college in four years. One does have to wonder if the financial industry is really behind this plan knowing that they will have consumers for life, now that there is a conscience effort to lower personal debits. Last year, The NewStandard reported that predatory lenders and their practices have been misleading consumers into loans with unfair terms and are currently growing in size and sophistication.
Community groups are reporting that that historically underserved consumers like immigrants, the elderly and women continue are the one who are being hit the hardest by predatory lenders. Although, Latino are the lest likely to apply for college loans, according the Houston Chronicle, Perry sees this as a chance to look like the benevolent leader since state population projections predict that the vast majority of people entering college will be Latino, since in a few years, Texas will soon be a minority majority state. Put it another way, Texas will soon be called Tejas.
During a time that offers an uncertainty to advance the Latino cause having access into Texas colleges and universities, this new program will only make thing more complicated. Since Latino have an aversion for apply for loans, will Latinos no longer apply for financial aid if Perry’s devious financial aid plan were to pass in the Texas Legislation this year? It is already known that Texas college are overcrowded as enrollments are on the rise, is this a way to drive away students and those who do stay and are not rich take a gamble with Perry’s draconian financial aid plan?
According to a latest progress report by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the state is nowhere close in closing the gap when it comes to higher education. Latino enrollment is only at 3.9 percent a dropped compared to the enrollment rate African Americans at 5.2 percent and whites at 5.6 percent. Currently Texas has bragging right as it ranks last among the six largest states in the amount of student financial aid and grants that are available.
It is not uncommon for the oppressed to take on the characteristics of their oppressors as they adopt strategies to escape their own oppression. Such is the case with Raymund Paredes, Texas’ Commissioner of Higher Education who has made it his mission to make wishful thinking the basis for Texas’ education policy which is intended to maintain white privilege and subjugation of the poor.
As the mouthpiece for the Higher Education Coordinating Board, he functions as the post-affirmative action poster token whose blindness has very pre-affirmative action effects on the poor and the brown children of Texas. Dr. Paredes is pushing to Perry’s plan which will only maintain the same historical power structures that are similar to those who are now destroyed our urban schools, which turned them into mindless and emotionless test-preparation camps.
Here in Tejas, we can expect the worse. The state’s top demographer, Steve Murdock, predicts a sad picture.
Imagine a Texas with declining household incomes, tax revenues that can’t keep up with demands for services and children growing up worse off than their parents.
That’s what Texans can expect unless government does a better job educating the growing Hispanic population, which could become the state’s majority by 2025.
Gringos claim that the Southwest is becoming a Third World because it has to has to do with the over population of Latinos. The truth, it is the gringos who are to blame, with their policies to keep us down. University of Texas at San Antonio Professor Ruben Martinez said it best,
“We’re living in a time of great fear, and during times of fear, people are very reluctant to engage in change, and they are very reluctant to take some risk because they are fearful.”
Dr. Martinez is correct, when he says it has to do with fear. Fear of the a Brown Planet.