Experts: Latino students can feel less than valued - Salt Lake Tribune: When Richard Gomez was young, his father discouraged him from going to college.
'My dad was saying, 'No, you're the oldest of eight. You need to graduate and go to work,'' Gomez said.
But Gomez, now coordinator for educational equity at the State Office of Education, went to college anyway after a counselor told him he was 'college material.'
It's the type of encouragement Gomez said is essential to keeping Latino students -- who might not otherwise envision the same futures as their white peers -- in school. Experts say a number of systemic and personal challenges keep many Latino students from graduating.
Some face economic pressures such as having to work -- or wanting to drop out of school -- to help support their families. Others struggle to fulfill high school requirements in a language they're still learning. Some students who are in the U.S. illegally --- about 7 percent of Latinos younger than 18 -- see no point in finishing school, knowing it will be difficult to secure scholarships and professional jobs, experts say.
