Policy Brief: Demography and Immigration

Immigration over the years has significantly impacted the success of the United States as an economic world leader through the labor and innovation contributed by immigrants. However, immigrant students have historically been disenfranchised by the country’s social agencies, particularly that of the higher education system, as evidenced by their under-representation in post-secondary institutions and low completion rates among those who pursue higher education. To combat these factors, educators and policy makers must intervene earlier with access and support programs for students well in advance of the postsecondary level, which is when they are most often introduced.

While immigration status or belonging to a particular ethnic group alone are not determinants of college participation or enrollment (Baum and Flores, 2011), factors such as students’ socioeconomic status and the quality of education received at the primary and secondary level significantly impact college participation and retention (Solmon, Solmon, and Schiff, 2002). In addition to parents’ education, the predictors of academic achievement among immigrant students lie in English language skills, being female, a two-parent household, and father’s employment status (Baum and Flores, 2011).

Having identified these predictors, early-intervention access programs for immigrant students must target those who do not display evidence of possessing these predictive factors of success. Over time, these access programs must equip students with adequate information about financial aid resources and instill traits such as grit, self-advocacy, and time management, in order to position students for postsecondary success, assuming the quality of their K-12 education or immigrant generation (Hagy and Staniec, 2002) has limited the options of institution types they are able to consider. Ensuring the success of these students will also positively impact the shortage of people of color among faculty, ushering in a surge of students of color at institutions with high numbers of faculty of color in years to come (Solmon, Solmon, and Schiff, 2002).

These early-intervention access programs might also consider incorporating the cultural competencies and knowledge that adult immigrants bring with them to the United States from their sending countries. Further research on the behaviors of positively selected immigrants beyond just being highly educated and having the resources to move (Feliciano, 2005), might provide insight to some of the qualities and values that correlate with persistence and performance that can be taught to immigrant students in early-intervention access programs. Perhaps this strategy of identifying the factors that lead to success among migrants and assessing their impact on immigrant students might also be translated into other fields such as human resources, coaching, and other areas of education, eventually developing a more successful workforce overall.

Immigrant characteristics are often generalized to also apply to an entire national group by the average US native (Feliciano, 2005). By further exploring the factors beyond immigrant status and ethnicity, the participation and retention of immigrant students in higher education must be expanded to not only equally reflect their growing presence in today’s population, but also to recompense them for their future contributions to the success of the United States by being participants in its labor market.

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References:

Baum, S., & Flores, S. M. (2011). Higher education and children in immigrant families. Future of

Children, 21, 173-193.

Feliciano, C. (2005). Unequal Origins: Immigrant selection and the education of the second generation. El Paso: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC – Chapter 3, pp. 33-64.

Hagy, A., & Staniec, J. F. O. (2002). Immigrant status, race, and institutional choice in higher education. Economics of Education Review, 21, 381-392.

Solmon, L. C., Solmon, M. S., & Schiff, T. W. (2002). The changing demographics: Problems

and opportunities. In W.A. Smith, P. Altbach, & K. Lomotey (Eds.), The racial crisis in American higher education: Continuing challenges for the twenty-first century (pp. 43- 76). Albany: State University of New York Press.