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In this Higher Ed Careers interview, Antonio R. Flores, president and chief executive officer of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), discusses trends and what’s new with Hispanic-Serving Institutions, his career path, and HACU’s many achievements in recent years.
Mary Guiden, HigherEdJobs: You recently held your annual conference and discussed trends in higher education affecting Hispanics and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). Could you briefly describe some of these trends — including distance learning, outcomes assessment, and cross-national accreditation — and what they mean for institutions?
Antonio R. Flores, HACU: Latinos and Latinas are “oversubscribed” in the lower strata of STEM degrees instead of being in the higher end of that field with doctoral, master’s, or engineering degrees. We want to see better outcomes from the investments made in higher education that would more fully support those at that higher end.
Opportunity Insights, located at Harvard University, studied the socioeconomic mobility of the lowest quintile of incoming freshmen to colleges and universities nationwide as they graduate and enter the labor force. They determined the proportion of those who came in at that lowest quintile and moved up to the top quintile. Nine of the top 10 institutions where they saw this were Hispanic-Serving Institutions. That says a lot about the return on investment and the effectiveness of students from lower-income populations moving to higher socioeconomic status.
Tony Carnevale did another study more recently at the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University. He looked at the top 20 institutions for return on investment for degree attainment. Thirteen of the 20 were either Hispanic-Serving Institutions or emerging HSIs.
Those are clear indicators of outcomes and the broader sense of outcome, which is upward mobility, return on investment for degree attainment, and so forth. We’re proud of that, but we know we have more work to do because our institutions remain severely underfunded regarding federal government investments. So, we must insist that Congress, the new administration, and states invest more in institutions that are doing an excellent job helping those who need the most help to move up the societal ladder.
Guiden: According to a recent HACU analysis, there are 600 Hispanic-serving institutions in the U.S., the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. HSIs, by federal definition, are nonprofit degree-granting institutions with full-time equivalent undergraduate Hispanic student enrollment of at least 25%. What sets HSIs apart from other institutions, and how can this designation help a college or university and its constituents?
Flores: Some Hispanic-Serving Institutions have been that way since their inception because of their location, whether in Puerto Rico, El Paso, or McAllen, Texas. In some cases, their student population is 99% percent Hispanic. And they have always been from the beginning. Other institutions are beginning to operate as Hispanic-serving because they have reached the cutoff point of 25 percent or greater Latino enrollment and got the designation. Still, they don’t have years of experience serving this population.
You also have different realities at each institution with respect to its leadership, factors that either hinder or help its mission of helping Latino students succeed in getting their college degrees, and the politics of a particular region or state that may have a bearing on that.
For example, we are based in Texas, with enrollment at 53% Latino in K-12. Latinos are now the largest plurality of the state’s population and will soon be the majority. And yet, some government policies go counter to what we propose. They have dismantled DEI, offices, and staff, and there is a push against immigrants.
Those are assets that we bring to the table: our language and our rich cultural heritage. And not in lieu of, but in addition to, the American heritage that we are part of. And, yet there is this ill-advised and unfounded fear of the different, of the unfamiliar for some.
But we can see that outcomes-wise, there is no question that HSIs are excelling and helping all students, especially Latino students, get not only college degrees but also successfully enter the labor market.
Guiden: What trends are you seeing in the numbers of HSIs over the last five to 10 years (expansion, holding steady)? As a follow-up, what’s driving that trend?
Flores: At least three major trends or factors are contributing to the very rapid growth of HSIs. Every year, we add between 20 and 25 new HSIs, except during the pandemic, when there was a stagnation of sorts.
One factor is sheer demographic growth. You have many more young people because we’re a younger population than the average American. So, we have significant growth in K-12, for example, as I mentioned. In Texas, more than 53% of the K-12 students are Latino — it’s more like 55% now. That clearly defines the state’s future.
California is even ahead of Texas in terms of percentages; 56% of K-12 students were Latino a couple of years ago. New York and Florida are moving in the same direction. Even in the states where we didn’t know there were significant numbers of Latinos concentrated in areas of those states, we now have HSIs, like Idaho.
The very existence of HSIs has elevated families’ awareness of the opportunity to go to college and the necessity of doing it to get ahead in life. HSIs are also collaborating with K-12 schools to improve the success rate in high school graduation and college admission. The dropout rate in K-12 among Latinos has plummeted.
And thirdly, more families and more communities recognize that the future of their well-being as families and communities rests on educational attainment and success. And that they are, as a society, becoming much more attuned to that, to the fact that not only “the more you learn, the more you earn,” but the more you engage in civic affairs and become a more integral part of everything in American life.
The Department of Labor published a report in 2022 indicating that from 2020 to 2030, 78% of all new workers joining the American labor force will be Hispanic. That’s a huge data point. We expect them to continue driving up the number and impact of HSIs.
Guiden: Since you became president and CEO in 1996, HACU has tripled its membership, budget, and programs. You’ve been credited with advancing legislation for HSIs, including increasing federal funding to more than $5 billion and securing millions of dollars in new private funding for HSIs and associate members. First, congratulations on your accomplishments. What else would you add to this list? And what advice do you have for your peers leading similar associations?
Flores: The most important asset of an organization like ours is its people, my colleagues. So, the most important responsibility of a CEO is to select the best possible team and create a work culture that allows them to shine and collaborate across all sides of the organization.
Obviously, we have had the opportunity to develop highly effective strategies.
I want to mention the important role that our governance has in all of this. We have an outstanding governing board of presidents and CEOs elected by their peers, and they are some of the brightest and most insightful people I have worked with. They guide our work policy-wise, strategically, and programmatically help us a lot.
Over the years, we have developed a strategy for our advocacy work that involves continually engaging with both sides of the aisle, not neglecting either but working with Republicans and Democrats. We have created a U.S. Senate and a U.S. House of Representatives HSI caucus and ensured that those two caucuses comprise both sides, Republicans and Democrats.
What we do is not partisan, Republican, or Democrat; it is American. It’s to ensure that everyone, particularly our community, has a chance for higher education. That has given us credibility across Congress and administrations, regardless of what party is in the White House.
The second thing is that we’ve been able to couch the messages for our friends and corporate America concerning workforce development and the needs of their own industries related to what we represent, the 53 million college students at HSIs. They are the backbone of this country’s future workforce. They must be clear, our friends on the corporate side, that for their companies to succeed, they must avail themselves of the best and brightest from those coming out of our universities.
And that’s primarily why they partner with us: They want to tap into important talent, many of which are fully bilingual and bicultural, and they can operate in an environment like that, where the U.S. is the second largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, only after Mexico.
Guiden: Tell us about your career path and background. You have bachelor’s degrees in elementary education and business administration, a master’s in counseling and personnel, and a doctoral degree in higher education administration. These subject areas seem like a perfect fit for the role you’re in at HACU. How has your education shaped your career?
Flores: I wish I could say I had it all planned. None of what I have experienced throughout my life has been done based on a master plan of any kind. It’s all been building up on what I have been able to do before, and then creating a new vision for what I’ll do next.
I’m originally from Mexico. I came to the U.S. as an immigrant when I was 25 without knowing English. In Mexico, during high school and college, the language to learn was French, and no one told me that my chances of going to France were almost nil.
I grew up in a tiny farming community in rural Mexico. That’s where you learn values, build your character, and learn the skill sets that will help you for the rest of your life.
In those years, the highest level of education was fifth grade. So, to finish elementary school, I had to leave my little community. I learned the most important lessons right there.
Learning English was not easy — at 25 — but I strongly committed to getting a graduate education, so I applied myself. All along, I have had great mentors and supporters, and I still remember every one of them as having made an impact on my life in one way or another.
Even today, at my age, I look up to people who are much younger than me. I know that they are very bright and wise for their age, and I learn from them.
When I came to the U.S., I had two undergraduate degrees from Mexico. I earned a master’s degree at Western Michigan University and then my doctoral degree at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
But the main challenge was learning English at the beginning. I had a great ESL teacher. I still remember her very vividly. I came to Milwaukee for my first year and a half in the U.S. It was there that I really learned English and, at least, the beginning of English.
My ESL teacher’s name is Graciela de la Cruz. She still lives in Milwaukee. She was not only my ESL teacher, but also my mentor. She took me under her wing and shared with me all she knew about how to maneuver the higher education system in the U.S. and what to do to prepare myself for graduate education. And that was incredibly valuable to me.
