As America's Latino population continues to grow groups such as Excelencia in Education, a non-profit, are focusing on how to improve college completion rates for Latino students. By 2020 it is projected that 25 percent of the nation's 18-29 year-olds will be Latino. Despite growth in size there appear to be low college completion rates among this population. As of 2011, 21 percent of Latinos had an associate degree or higher, compared to 57 percent of Asians, 44 percent of whites and 30 percent of blacks.
Patricia Gandara, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, proposes that parents play the most important role in improving Latino students educations.
"Parents have to understand why this is important, how you do it, how you encourage your kids. I think generally speaking, Latino parents want their kids to do well in school and they think its an opportunity, but they have almost no information," said Gandara in a recent interview with Nick Pandolfo of the Hechinger Report. "Schools have got to work with parents."
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