Looking at the Whole Picture: Hispanic Higher Education at its Best

Abstract

Our guest editors have focused this issue of the journal on a topic that underscores our mission, advancing research that sheds light on the successful education of all students, in particular Latino/Latina or Hispanic students. As with every article published in this journal, efforts are made to define authors' use of specific terminology. For purposes of this issue, Latino/ Latina or Hispanic students denote those individuals who self-identify as such; the terms are used interchangeably to reflect the different sentiments of the members of such a diverse group. Maricela Oliva grew up in the predominately Mexican American Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. She was the first in her family to go to college, leaving the region to attend Yale University in Connecticut. Maricela has more than 18 years of experience in Texas higher education. Much of that was spent serving in administrative capacities in institutions of higher education and in various policy assignments with the state's postsecondary oversight agency, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. In recent years, she has served as an educational administration faculty member at the University of Texas-El Paso and the University of Texas-Pan American, two South Texas institutions. She is now a faculty member in the higher education program at Texas A & M University in College Station. Academic work by Oliva includes research on U.S.-Mexico-Canada collaboration in higher education as well as publications on multicultural issues and the Texas policy context. She has published multiple articles in refereed journals. Amaury Nora is a professor of higher education and an associate dean for research and faculty development in the College of Education at the University of Houston. His research focuses on college persistence, the role of college on diverse student populations across different types of institutions, the development of financial aid models that integrate economic theories and college persistence theories, graduate education, and theory building and testing. He has served as consultant to the American Council of Education, the Ford Foundation, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universi-115

The influence of distal family background and proximal family status on the occurrence and timing of post-baccalaureate enrollment

“…Thus, researchers have established the prominent factors of influence and stratification in undergraduate education, including habitus, social class, cultural capital, and others Cabrera & La Nasa, 2001;Charles, Roscigno, & Torres, 2007;Engberg & Allen, 2011;Karabel & Astin, 1975;McDonough, 1997;Nora, 2004;Paulsen & St. John, 2002;Perna, 2000;Perna, 2004;St. John, 2000).…”

“…However, in the current study, I focused on the significant others who may reside within the household of the college graduate: spouse and children. In traditional undergraduate student models, parents exert influence on college enrollment because of their shared social status (cultural capital and social capital) and financial status (McDonough, 1997;Nora, 2004;Stevens, 2007). This principle holds for adults; however, their social and financial status is tied to those with whom they reside and share financial resources, family responsibilities, and civic responsibilities.…”