A misguided prescription

In June, an Indiana think tank introduced a plan intended to encourage more Hispanics to pursue higher education. While this may seem like something that is good for the Hispanic community, it has raised no small amount of controversy. At issue is the Sagamore Institute researchers’ recommendation that Hispanics try for two-year degrees from colleges such as Ivy Tech rather than four-year, or even post-graduate, degrees. \nThe think tank was formed because the declining Indiana population has, partly, contributed to an increase in the percentage of immigrants. Their children will soon become part of the Indiana workforce. Many will have jobs that require an education beyond high school, but may not require a four-year degree. \nIt might be an attempt by our state to better the lot of Indiana’s immigrants, but the Editorial Board is wary of issuing such blanket prescriptions, especially based on race. We see the plan as stereotyping Hispanics, and could be seen as advancing the backward view that propensity toward education is based on ethnicity. That’s the main flaw: The researchers seem to make this a racial issue, rather than what it actually is – a socioeconomic issue. \nIn defense to the criticism, the researchers said Hispanic students can use the two-year college as a “launching point” toward eventually obtaining a four-year degree. But opponents of the think tank’s recommendation are not against the idea of encouraging Hispanics to get two-year degrees. Ricardo Parra, the president of the Associate of Mexican Leaders in Action, said the think tank should have recommended that Hispanics strive for four-year degrees in addition to two-year degrees. By just advocating two-year degrees, he feels that the plan would seem to create a “servant class.”\nThe think tank believes the Hispanic community can achieve positions of skilled labor, but the plan would limit them to one kind of education and work. Some opponents of the findings said this creates the idea that Hispanics should be viewed as merely laborers. That cuts to the heart of the issue. The group seems to have issued this proposal because it sees all Hispanics as existing within the same socioeconomic group, and if Indiana’s immigrant population began primarily as migrant laborers, this could perhaps be the case. But issuing a prescription based on race, even if many of Indiana’s Hispanics are on the same socioeconomic level, is misguided. The think tank doesn’t really believe Hispanics should get two-year degrees chiefly because they’re Hispanic; they believe they should get two-year degrees because it would create a level of education beyond what the older generation had. \nInstead, the think tank should have focused on ways to help the new and growing Hispanic community to flourish, and grow to become an integral and well-integrated part of Indiana rather than allowing tired stereotypes to influence their research and decisions. \nThe researchers at the Sagamore Institute should rethink their conclusion and come up with a solution that encourages the individual rather than unfairly viewing everyone in the Hispanic community as the same.