NEARLY A MILLION LATINOS SERVED BY TWO-YEAR COLLEGES

Even though Debru Petrov, a 33-year-old student at East Los Angeles College, landed a paid journalism internship, worked part-time for the college, and attended classes, she still spent three weeks with no electricity in her studio apartment because she was not making ends meet.

Llike many Latino students, Uruguayan Petrov is overcoming challenges to take advantage of the bridge that community colleges provide to higher education. She's one of nearly a million Hispanics enrolled each year in two-year institutions.

These institutions are the largest and fastest-growing sector of U.S. higher education, enrolling more than six million students for credit across the nation, according to the American Association of Community Colleges. They also offer courses to some five million non-credit students.

Of all Latino undergraduates, 56 percent attend these schools.

Dr. José Vicente is a graduate and now president of Miami-Dade College, North Campus, one of the eight campuses under the Miami-Dade College umbrella which awards the most associate degrees to Latinos nationally. He says, "For Latinos, community colleges are truly the passport to higher education. We are committed to our open-door policy."

Open-access admission, proximity to home and affordable tuition all play roles in Latinos' success at the 1,200 community colleges, he observed. Nationwide, tuition averages $2,076 annually at community colleges, compared to $30,000 or more at the private university level, according to The College Board, a non-profit best known for administering the SATs.

Petrov says her educational objective is not just to earn an associate's degree. According to a National Center for Education Statistics survey taken last year, 37 percent of Latino students share her goal of transferring to a four-year institution. It took Petrov five years to earn her associate degree and she needs only one more math course before she can apply to a university.

Journalism jobs usually require a bachelor's degree but for professions such as nursing, an associate's degree fulfills requirements for many jobs. NCES reveals for 24 percent of Latinos the goal is to attain an associate's degree. From 1988 to 2003, the number of Latinos earning associate's degrees advanced from 17,800 to 66,175, according to the AACC.

Gumecindo Salas, vice president of the ...