Economic Value at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

In this report, the Research Institute at Dallas College uses two data sources to examine how postsecondary education shapes student wage outcomes. First, we analyze outcomes at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) using a national cross-section of public data from the Equitable Value Explorer (EVE). Overall, we find that the economic outcomes of students at HSIs are comparable to those at non-HSIs, with the median student at the majority of HSIs and emerging HSIs having a positive economic return. However, work remains to ensure this value is realized by all students, including those from low-income families, women, and those with post-college earnings in the lowest quartile. Additionally, while HSIs fare well on the whole, the economic outcomes of Hispanic students specifically cannot be tracked separately in these data.

Therefore, we also use state administrative data to analyze the after-college earnings trajectories of Hispanic students in Texas, applying the economic value thresholds employed by the EVE and developed by the Postsecondary Value Commission. We follow the earnings through 2020 of Hispanic students who graduated from Texas high schools between 2009 and 2014. These longitudinal data, which are also favorable in aggregate, allow us to explore earnings parity, underscore the importance of credential completion for economic mobility, and reveal modest variation within Hispanic students’ economic outcomes, including differences by gender, race, and socioeconomic status, among other characteristics. We also use these data for a case study focused on the outcomes of Hispanic students at Dallas College.

Taken together, our research gives reason for optimism around how institutions of higher education (IHEs) deliver equitable value to Hispanic students and the role that HSIs play in the postsecondary ecosystem. At the same time, we present evidence that challenges the notion that HSIs and Hispanic students realize monolithic economic outcomes. Using Dallas College as an example—itself a community college, HSI, and one of the country’s largest awarders of associate degrees to Hispanic graduates—we close with reflection on how IHEs can continue to further the work of the Equitable Value Movement, both across and within diverse student populations, to ensure Hispanic and all students may reap the rewards of higher education.

Acknowledgement: We are grateful to the Institute for Higher Education Policy, and their Elevating Equitable Value research series, for grant funding that supported this research.