On Aug. 23, the Texas Tribune Events hosted their latest endeavor at the Brownsville UTRGV Campus titled “Serving Hispanic Students in Texas” to discuss several pressing issues concerning Hispanic students and financial burdens.
According to Events and Festival Manager, Amiee Gonsalez Jonhson, a city is chosen to host the event by considering the demographics and importance of the topic to the city. In this case, Brownsville was the host of a hispanic prominent panel.
The panel was moderated by CEO of the Texas Tribune, Evan Smith and included a question and answer session with UTRGV President Guy Bailey, former UTB President Juliet V. Garcia and Director of Policy and Strategy at UT El Paso Jacob Fraire.
One of the issues heavily discussed was financial support and assistance for students who are attending UTRGV, from making the cost of attendance lower, providing housing to students that are married or child care to students who have children.
According to Fraire, more than 50 percent of students are first generation and 21 percent are parents.
Evan Smith argued that it may be the institution’s duty to provide the needed care for the students who have children.
“It may be the institution’s responsibility to provide childcare… The university has to give them whatever kind of help they can,” Smith said.
The university has focused on providing help to students by making more on-campus jobs and increasing student worker wages, President Bailey said responding to Smith.
“So we are trying to minimize the cost of education, we think if we do that the college degree will be your ticket to a better future,” said Bailey.
The topic of financial need continued as Jacob Fraire mentioned the instances where students might feel the need to drop out of college for a semester or more due to financial stress.
According to Fraire, Hispanics are a very tight family unit which implies if something were to happen to the parents, the children will step up and work for the family, leaving no time for their college education. However, he also added this,
“Make no mistake about it, Hispanic families value higher education”
In order to promote students to enroll and finish their college educations, changes are being made to the curriculum. Bailey explained how UTRGV is opening more possibilities for students.
“What we want to do is continue to expand opportunities for students, like the new degree in Podiatric Medicine… each time we add a new degree, that’s a new opportunity for you as a student,” President Bailey said.
For more information or to watch the recorded panel, visit the Texas Tribune Website.
