Washington tries to get more Hispanics into college

Troubled by the lagging enrollment of Hispanics in Washington colleges, some legislators are calling for a special commission to study ways to improve the educational prospects of the state's fastest-growing minority group. If approved by the Legislature, the commission would study economic, language and cultural barriers that impede Hispanic access to college and report back in 2007 - just a year before the state requires high school students to pass the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. Only 16 percent of Hispanic 10th-graders passed the reading, writing and math portions of the WASL last year. That compares with 39 percent of all students, suggesting many Hispanics will have a hard time graduating from high school, let alone attending college. "If we get to 2008 with those same statistics, we're going to have a crisis," said Antonio Ginatta, executive director of the state Commission on Hispanic Affairs. From 1990 to 2000, Washington's Hispanic population more than doubled to 441,509. The state Office of Financial Management predicts it will rise to more than 1.1 million in 2030. But Hispanic college enrollment has not kept pace. [more]