Dive brief:

• Latino students with limited English skills and lacking a high schooldiploma will be able to attend a new, private two-year college in Chicago this fall that will help them get middle income jobs, according to Inside Higher Education.
• Instituto College was founded by the non-profit Instituto del Progreso Latino and will use existing bridge programs that train Latino students to provide them with a college degree. The first 24 students admitted this fall will prepare for health-care careers, but the program intends to train students for work in manufacturing, networking technologies and organizational leadership.
• JPMorgan Chase is providing $500,000 toward the college’s initial operating costs, which will include about $12,000 annual tuition per student. It is part of a $40 million investment by the company into the west side of Chicago, where it has had a working relationship with Instituto del Progreso Latino.

Dive Insight:

The college will still need to show success to receive accreditation, which would allow students to receive federal Pell grants. The grants are critical for low-income students, but often under-utilized by immigrant populations concerned about disclosing their legal status.

The development of the college comes as the Pew Research Center is reporting that the high school dropout rate among Hispanics has declined to a new low while college attendance levels have reached new highs. About 10% of Hispanic high school students dropped out in 2016 compared to 16% in 2011, while the number of Latino high school graduates attending college has risen to 47%, up from 32% five years prior. However, Hispanic students are still less likely than other groups to complete college and obtain a four-year degree.

The American Council on Education has reported in a series of articles that officials in higher education should develop new strategies to encourage Latino students to attend and finish college, including developing better pipelines to college and providing more information to them and their families, who are more likely to have less experience with the application process and college overall.

It also recommends that higher education improve student success with financial aid targeted to these students, with support for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as well as other support services, recognizing that these students may find campuses intimidating and may have attended high schools that did not prepare them as well as other students. For example, The University of California, Davis, has created Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success (CCLASS), which has several programs supporting the academic, social, and personal development needs of Latino student