Educating Hispanic Teenagers

This past month I was able to speak to a group of 40 pre-teens in Cleburne, Texas. In my presentation to the students I asked how many of them had ever seen a college degree. To my dismay less than a quarter of the room raised their hands. So then I asked how many of them wanted to see and touch a college degree. 100% of them raised their hands and so then I went on to unravel three degrees that I had available. Once was mine and the other my wife’s and the third one belonged to a good friend of mine who was hosting the event.

One by one I began to uncover the degrees that were sitting in their own displays ready to be hung back on the wall. You could hear the ewwws and ahhhhs from the students as I uncovered them all. I told them that each one represented over $40,000 of tuition fees. Truth is they were worth way more than that to the person who has achieved such success academically.

See Hispanics tend to have several odds against them when they attend college. For one, very few have school paid for in its entirety when they begin. So the amount of Hispanics who work while taking college courses is high. When students have to work and go to school at the same time, an area of life suffers. There are times when all areas of life suffer due to stress and this is why many start but few finish. So for students to be able to see and touch three bachelor degrees was huge that day.

The real reason why I wanted them to see and touch them was so that they can catch a vision and dream about going and finishing school one day. This is why it’s important to start educating Hispanic teenagers about finishing high school and moving on to a higher education. Every generation of Hispanic students should go a little further than the last. Why? Because it’s achievable. Just like the Olympics, records continue to be broken every four years. The same is true in Hispanic education; we continue get further ahead than those of previous generations.

Hispanic College Expenses

When it comes to college or any higher education programs, Hispanics are all on board. That is until you reveal to them how much it is going to costs. See Hispanics do not fear having to get up and go to school for a certain amount of years. We are hard working individuals and will spend a lifetime day laboring if we had to. But when it comes to having to pay college expenses to attend colleges and universities, hispanics are discouraged due to financial woes.

This is why so many Hispanics start off at the junior college level because it’s affordable and the classes can be scheduled around work hours. Of course most junior colleges only let you get most basic courses out of the way until one receives an associate’s degree. But it’s that next leap that is hard to take for many. Transferring to a University where you are no longer close to home or maybe having to move away from home. On top of being away from home, tuition fees increase tremendously from the junior college level. So the amount of financial pressure builds up until it’s too much to handle leaving Hispanics with a couple choices:  take out a ridiculous amount of money on school loans and finish or move back home and work a full time job.

All of this could have been prevented if parents would have saved money for their children to attend college. But paying to attend school becomes news to them when they are graduating because their whole lives the children were able to attend public school for free or on behalf of taxpayers and now that they want to continue they, there is a cost. This is why it’s important to educate parents on why they should save money for their children as early as elementary.  There is a myth that because students are Hispanic that money is going to be thrown at them as they continue their education and this is not true. Yes, there are scholarships available for students of certain races but one should not rely solely on scholarships, only a portion.

Hispanic American Education

There seems to be a lot of talk about Hispanic American education. Many programs are created every year to help boost or may I say increase the attendance of Hispanics in higher education. The truth is that schools are struggling to get students to get serious about academics let alone college. There is something that the school system has left out when it comes to education. The parents.

What happens is this, once the parents get educated, the kids get educated. This does not happen all the time but Hispanic parents can push their children to do more than they did. For example, if the parents only went junior high or high school then the children have a chance of finishing high school. If the parents finished high school then the children will most likely attend college. This happens because the more education that you have, the more that you appreciate what it can do for the family.

Hispanic education is America has a side effect though. See for children of strong Hispanic parents, it’s hard for them to leave home and go away to school. Most feel that its a bad thing to move away from the family in order to pursue a life that includes higher education. For this reason, many Hispanics end up attending junior college and staying close to home after high school. Not only that but parents who have not gone through school will most likely not save up money so their children can afford college. In fact the complete opposite occurs. Parents spend the money on the home and on vehicles, basically anything tangible. Investing is almost non-existent in most Hispanic families, especially those of a Mexican background. This is not to say that its bad, they just have a different way of using their finances.

This is why its important for schools to invest in their Hispanic students because there is no telling which ones are getting the support from home, financially and academically. Some Hispanics are going to work their way through college and graduate school. So make sure to motivate the students by hiring a youth speaker who has been down the road of education and know what it takes to do the hard work but reap the benefits of having a bachelors and a masters degree. Hispanics need to catch a vision about education from others Hispanics because culture speaks for itself.

Educate Yourself Today

The message that I tell young people is very clear, educate yourself today so you can be prepared for tomorrow. The concept correlates with anything in life, if you prepare yourself for life, you will succeed in life.

I never used to think about education nor why it was important. Yes, many tried to get the message across to me that education would play a role in my life but I didn’t understand until I went to college. In fact I have to keep reminding myself how important Hispanic education is and how much of an impact having a college degree has had in my life.

I often hear people relay mixed messages to young students. Some will say that having a degree is just having a piece of paper on the wall and that it doesn’t play a role in person’s life. I would argue that a degree is more than a piece of paper it’s a way of life.

People choose to be educated. For some education becomes a way of life, a no turning back defining moment if you will in a persons life when they cross over and never return to a way of life that was holding them back from their true potential.

So if you are reading this, what are you waiting for, educate yourself today and reap the harvest that is ready for you to reap, but you must sow yourself in education.