Hispanic Student Enrollment Drops 5% at FIU
Elise Gregg
Hispanic students still make up the majority of FIU’s students but experienced a drop in enrollment this past academic year.
FIU has consistently had over 35,000 Hispanic students since 2018, making up around 65% of FIU’s student body and the largest Hispanic-serving Institution in the nation.
However, the 2021–22 academic year had nearly 2,000 fewer students than the previous year, dropping from around 38,000 to roughly 36,000.
During the pandemic, Hispanic students actually grew in number at FIU, while nearly every other group decreased across the board.
However, enrollment of Hispanic students decreased by 5% between this year and last year.
Although many other demographics at FIU also dropped (like Black and white students), the decrease was not as sharp.
Further, some groups, like nonresident alien students, actually increased.
This isn’t just an FIU trend: it’s happening on the national scale as well.
According to The Hechinger Report, while the Hispanic population is growing overall, “the number of colleges with Latino enrollment of at least 25 percent has declined during the pandemic, reversing a 20-year trend in higher education.”
It’s a reflection of a general decline in Latino enrollment overall, along with several other factors, like some smaller private colleges closing, along with changes in how colleges report demographic information.
That’s one source of confusion for international student Prachi Lalwani, a senior majoring in international relations.
“It’s really hard to identify myself with one because yes, even though I was born in Venezuela, my heritage is not from there,” said Lalwani, whose parents are Indian.
Lalwani, who is also a student ambassador at FIU, said sometimes surveys won’t show her anything she can really identify with.
“It depends on what I’m applying to, to be honest: if I don’t find Hispanic and I don’t find South Asian, I don’t put anything,” said Lalwani.
Nicole Nieto, executive vice president of the National Hispanic Institute, said a couple of other factors may contribute to the trend.
“I do believe some freshmen from Latino communities may have been in schools or school districts that saw a shortfall in personnel and services such as counselors and people who are ordinarily available to assist them with navigating the college admission world and they may not have gotten enough guidance to enroll,” said Nieto.
Inflation was another cause Nieto said may be behind decreased enrollment, along with other economic stresses.
“There’s a larger dependency in Hispanic families to assist in caring for other family members, whether it be siblings or grandparents,” said Nieto “There’s a lot of pressure on somebody who can work and study to also assume roles of responsibility in their households, and they may have not been able to attend college for that reason at the time.”
While the drop in Hispanic enrollment does match national trends, it actually bucks a different one.
Nationally, there are an increasing number of female students and a decreasing number of male students. However, this doesn’t seem to be the cause of lower numbers of Hispanic students at FIU.
The amount of female Hispanic students decreased by roughly 5.3% while men dropped by slightly less: 4.7%
In context, women dropped by 1,167 students while men dropped by 759 students.
Even with drops this year, however, Hispanic students still make up 64% of FIU’s student body, so it’s unlikely that FIU will lose its spot as one of the top HSIs in the country anytime soon.
