Abstract

While the Latinx population continues to grow faster than any other racial population in the United States, Latinx students are graduating from four-year institutions at a rate 12 percent lower than their White peers (Excelencia in Education, 2020b). As first defined in 1992 by the Higher Education Act reauthorization, Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) are accredited, degree-granting, non-profit institutions with undergraduate populations made up of at least 25 percent Latinx students. The role of HSIs is important because the majority (66 percent) of Latinx students enrolled in college attend an HSI (Excelencia in Education, 2019). The problem under investigation is that HSI funding that is meant to expand educational opportunities and improve educational attainment for Latinx students may be being utilized by institutions instead to supplement their budgets for programs that do not directly help Latinx students. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the receipt of Title V funding by four-year universities influenced Latinx student enrollment and graduation rates. Two research questions guided this study to determine the influence of Title V funding on enrollment and graduation rates of Latinx students at HSIs. The first question examined the relationship between enrollment and graduation rates and whether an HSI received Title V funding. The results of the independent t-tests found that there were no significant differences in Latinx enrollment or graduation rates between those HSIs that received Title V funding and those that did not receive Title V funding. The second question examined the change in enrollment and graduation rates for Latinx students between the first and last year of the Title V grant for those funded institutions. The results of the dependent t-test indicated that there was a significant difference in both Latinx enrollment and graduation rates between the first year of an institution's Title V grant funding period and the last year of an institution's Title V grant funding period. The statistically significant growth in graduation rates for Latinx can be seen as an encouraging sign that institutions' use of Title V funding is influencing the desired student population.

Notes

If this is your thesis or dissertation, and want to learn how to access it or for more information about readership statistics, contact us at STARS@ucf.edu

Graduation Date

2021

Semester

Fall

Advisor

Cox, Thomas

Degree

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)

College

College of Community Innovation and Education

Department

Educational Leadership and Higher Education

Degree Program

Educational Leadership; Higher Education Track

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0008815; DP0026094

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0026094

Language

English

Release Date

December 2021

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Doctoral Dissertation (Open Access)

Download

Share

COinS