Families like Sarah Coromina’s are relatively new to the textbooks and classrooms of a university, but her father would like to change that.
“My dad would tell me, ‘you can’t mess up, you have to do it, you are the last chance we have of one of my kids graduating college,'” Coromina said. “There wasn’t any doubt in my parents’ mind that I would go to a university.”
The number of Hispanic students, like Coromina, is rapidly increasing at both California universities and universities nationwide, according to recent research.
At Cal State Long Beach, 32.6 percent of undergraduates were of Hispanic descent in 2011, according to the university website.
According to the CSU’s website, 21 percent of undergraduate students in the 23-campus system were of Hispanic descent in 2002. By 2011, that percentage rose to 30.8 percent.
“Hispanics are growing at both the CSU and Cal State Long Beach,” CSU Spokesman Erik Fallis said.
In fall 2003, 7,873 Hispanic students were enrolled at CSULB, according to the university website. By fall 2011, that number rose to 10,820, a 27.2 percent increase.
“It is surprising to see those high numbers,” junior anthropology major Sarah Coromina said. “It doesn’t seem that way when I am walking around on campus. I think the numbers are high because some people are a fourth or half and still associate with being Latino.”
According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 46 percent of Hispanics throughout the U.S. were enrolled in American colleges in the last year, a 37 percent increase from 2008. The data was collected from the Census Bureau and the Department of Education.
The number of young Hispanics enrolled in college surpassed black enrollment for the first time in 2012, with 2.1 million Hispanics enrolled. The study found that Hispanics, as compared with other minority groups, are more likely to attend college.
Coromina said she has noticed how her family has become more college bound since her grandparent’s time.
“My grandparents were born in Puerto Rico, they lived most of their lives there before they moved to New York,” Coromina said. “They didn’t go to college, but my dad did.”
Coromina’s father was the first in his family to go to college, and Coromina is the second.
She said she had a lot of pressure from her parents to succeed and feels like most children from Hispanic families are the same.
Mechanical engineering majors Dunia Ponce and Johana Nuno said they think it is sometimes harder for Hispanic students to get into college, despite the statistics.
Ponce said Hispanic parents don’t quite understand what it takes to actually get into college.
“They don’t understand the system,” Ponce said.
Still, the number of Hispanic students at CSULB is growing, and it doesn’t seem to be dropping anytime soon.
“As the population is growing, so will the amount of Hispanic college students,” Nuno said.