Using State-Equity Reform to Improve Latinx Student Transfer

Abstract

This article focuses on Latinx transfer inequity and the role of state policy in addressing barriers faced trying to move from community college to four-year institutions. A recently passed initiative in California, known as the Student Equity Policy, offers community colleges the opportunity to address transfer barriers for racial/ethnic students through institutional planning. One of the largest challenges facing California Community Colleges are the persistent inequitable rates of transfer for Latinx students, the largest ethnic group in the system. Using critical policy analysis, I examined a subset of 33 Hispanic-serving community colleges to understand how they leveraged the policy to address the transfer barriers facing Latinx students. By examining equity plans, this study finds that although Latinx students are identified as facing disproportionate levels of inequity; the policy, planning process, and funding resources were left as unexploited opportunities to address Latinx students’ specific equity gaps.

For Latinx, by Latinx: Race-conscious leadership in policy implementation

“…First, Huerta is a unique campus that has spent the last four years, 2015-2019, leveraging the Student Equity Policy to develop and implement various projects to make the campus a more equitable environment for Latinx students. A recent analysis conducted of 33 HSI community colleges in the state found limited implementation efforts to address transfer in general, or more specifically Latinx transfer equity (Felix, 2020). Huerta was distinctive among the colleges examined in that it developed its equity plan and allocated its funds to establish new Latinx-focused transfer efforts.…”

“…In this article, I examined the way institutional leaders understand, interpret, and implement California's Study Equity Policy to address barriers facing Latinx students in community college. I focused on Huerta College 2 , an institution found to be implementing the policy in race-conscious ways (Felix, 2020). In part, the selection of Huerta College was an attempt to move "beyond misery research" (McLaughlin, 2006, p. 6), where researchers document the failures of policy implementation.…”

Policy implementation as a tool for advancing equity in community college

“…If we want to ensure policy efforts aimed at equity and moving towards eradicating equity gaps for minoritized students, there has to be a change in policy implementation. In higher education, there continues to be a paucity of policy scholars whose work focuses on how policy implementation impacts students, especially those from minoritized identities (e.g., Acevedo et al, 2015;Clotfelter et al, 2015;Felix, 2020;Felix & Ramirez, 2020;Felix et al, 2018;Gonzalez & Cataño, in press;Nienhusser, 2014Nienhusser, , 2018. Furthermore, higher education policy implementation literature often frames minoritized students through a deficit perspective or focuses on the reasoning as to why a policy did not work.…”

“…Their geographical spread positions community colleges to be institutions of opportunity for various rural and urban communities that often have embedded inequities across policies in the educational pipeline (Nienhusser & Ives, 2020) Waters-Bailey et al, 2019. However, criticism has remained on how completion efforts are advanced through equitable practices to support minoritized students, such as first-generation, low-income, Black, Indigenous, students of color, and others (Felix, 2020;Nevarez, & Wood, 2010;Taylor, 2015). Across all sectors of higher education, community colleges continue to enroll the majority of undergraduate students, representing 89.9% of all undergraduate student enrollment (Espinosa et al, 2019;Johnson & Cuellar Mejia, 2020).…”

“…For Latinx/Hispanic students who started at a community college in the fall of 2014, 36% completed within six years and for Black students, it was 28% (National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2020). Although different states have invested in policy efforts to mitigate this and work towards closing racial equity gaps, scholars have noted the challenges that exist in implementing these reforms (Felix, 2020;Jenkins et al, 2018).…”