Latino student enrollment at postsecondary institutions has increased significantly over the past few decades. Between 1980 and 2020, the number of Latino students enrolled at a degree-granting institution in the United States grew from 470,000, representing just four percent of students enrolled in a postsecondary institution, to 3.7 million students, representing 20 percent. Despite this tremendous growth, Latinos are less likely to be enrolled in college or have a bachelor’s degree than Asian, White, and Black Americans. However, nearly one-third of current Latino undergraduates are adult learners (25 years and older), suggesting that Latino adult students are beginning to return to college, with the potential for more enrollment in the years ahead.

At the same time, states are looking for ways to enroll and graduate more students to meet workforce demands. Texas, which has 111 of the 600 Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) in the US,[1] is striving to increase the share of working-age Texans (25-64 years old) who have a postsecondary credential of value to 60 percent by 2030.[2] In order for the state to meet this ambitious goal, Texas colleges and universities, in addition to serving Latino students, will increasingly need to reckon with what it means to serve adult students.

One initiative aimed at helping Texas HSIs do that is the Latino and Adult Student Success (LASS) Academy. A multi-year initiative administered by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) and funded by the Greater Texas Foundation and Strada Education Foundation, the LASS Academy is focused on supporting HSIs and emerging HSIs in their efforts to improve outcomes for adult and Latino adult learners. The first LASS Academy ran from 2018 through 2021 and supported 15 postsecondary institutions across the country. The second LASS Academy began in 2022 to build on the first Academy and support interventions that most effectively improve student outcomes at four Texas institutions: Austin Community College (ACC), South Texas College (STC), Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi (TAMU-CC), and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). Ithaka S+R served as the independent evaluator of the second Academy to examine and document the impact of and lessons learned from the initiative and to use the findings to inform future implementation.

Today, we are co-publishing with CAEL a report that describes the work of the initiative in more detail, presents case studies of the institutional approaches to change management, and offers insights and recommendations from the initiative for other institutions and organizations looking to serve adult and Latino adult learners.

The LASS Academy Model

In order to facilitate institutional change, CAEL developed the LASS Academy model, aimed at pinpointing significant areas of need for adult and Latino adult learners at the participating institutions and providing guidance and support as they work to address them. The model is comprised of the following four components:

  • Identify key priorities and action steps. The four participating institutions identified strategic focus areas to work on during the grant period, depending on the specific needs identified through the examination of their own data. These focus areas were largely an extension of those that the institutions identified during the first LASS Academy.
  • Provide technical assistance. The institutions received guidance and technical assistance for their respective focus areas from either CAEL or one of three partner organizations (InsideTrack, CollegeAPP, and Excelencia in Education). The institutions also administered CAEL’s Adult Learner 360 (AL360) surveys to gain insights into the needs of their adult learners.
  • Collect, analyze, and report data. Institutions were responsible for collecting and submitting institutional data at regular intervals to measure progress on key student success indicators and the priority areas. Ithaka S+R, in addition to analyzing and reporting on this data, conducted interviews with key stakeholders, including project staff and students, to better understand their perceptions and experiences of the initiative.
  • Facilitate peer-to-peer learning. The institutions participated in multiple virtual and in-person convenings to share progress and learn from their peers.

Institutional Case Studies

The report features the following case studies that showcase the focus areas and specific activities the participating institutions engaged in:

  • Increasing Enrollment Through Targeted Marketing and Recruitment: South Texas College. CollegeAPP assisted STC in conducting two targeted recruitment and marketing campaigns for adults. A new Office of Student Reengagement provided personalized support to adult learners with re-enrollment and onboarding, and STC partnered with community organizations to assist students in addressing basic needs.
  • Improving Retention Through Advising and Personalized Coaching: Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. InsideTrack provided a series of advisor and coaching training sessions to both institutions. The training employs a relational approach to coaching and advising that encourages staff to identify student needs and build trust with students so they feel comfortable sharing obstacles.
  • Accelerating Degree Completion by Expanding and Improving Opportunities for Credit for Prior Learning: Austin Community College and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. CAEL provided credit for prior learning (CPL) training for TAMU-CC staff, and both institutions participated in other activities to assess their CPL policies and build buy-in across the institution. Both TAMU-CC and ACC engaged in a process mapping activity with CAEL to identify inefficiencies or disconnects in their current CPL processes. In addition, ACC hired dedicated staff to expand internal capacity and launched CAEL’s Credit Predictor Pro for better CPL advising and data tracking.

Lessons from the Initiative

Through interviews with institutional project staff and students on their experiences participating in the initiative’s activities, we identified shared themes and recommendations across the four institutions. Below is a subset of insights included in the report:

  • Data helps build a business case for developing an intentional strategy for targeting and supporting adult learners. Regular data collection revealed to project staff the existing trends in adult learner enrollment and completion, prompting commitments to evaluating adult learner data going forward.
  • Institutions value opportunities to learn from each other. In fact, some participants expressed that even more of the initiative’s convening time could have been dedicated to informal networking time with each other.
  • Adult learners are an important source of data on how to better support them. Through student interviews, we learned that one way is to help them feel like they belong and another is to provide flexibility in program design.

Read the full report and learn more about how these four institutions put into place important services, processes, and policies that can be used as models for other institutions looking to improve how they serve their adult and Latino adult student populations.

[1] An HSI is defined as a degree-granting institution with 25 percent or higher total undergraduate Hispanic or Latino full-time equivalent student enrollment.

[2] We use the term “Latino” interchangeably with “Hispanic.”