Testimony of Dr. Miguel A. Nevárez
President, University of Texas-Pan-American

United States House of Representatives
House Committee on Education and the Workforce
Subcommittee on Select Education

Hearing On
"Expanding Opportunities in Higher Education:  Honoring the Contributions of America's Hispanic Serving Institutions"

October 6, 2003
Edinburg, Texas

Issues and Challenges

Good morning. My name is Miguel A. Nevárez and I am President of the University of Texas-Pan American. I have served as President for the last 22 years and I am pleased and honored that you have chosen to provide this region the opportunity to share our challenges and recommendations. I hope you enjoy our wonderful campus and the hospitality of our people.

In preparing for this hearing, I was asked to focus on the issues and challenges facing the University of Texas-Pan American.

These issues and challenges can be identified into five areas:

As President, I have articulated these issues as goals which the University must strive to achieve.

If we are to prepare our students to be productive, successful, and able to serve the needs of the 21^st Century, I believe meeting these goals is essential.

The Condition of the Economy and Education in the Rio Grande Valley

Census 2000 figures show that 88% of Hidalgo County’s population is Hispanic as compared to only 12% of the U.S. population and 32% of the Texas population.

Educational attainment in the border region of South Texas is much worse than in the state as a whole. For example, in Hidalgo County (2000 Census), 34% of the adult population (age 25 and older) has less than a 9^th grade education, compared to just 11% for the State of Texas. According to the 2000 Census, only one-half of the Hidalgo County adults (50%) graduated from high school, compared to 78% for the State and 80% for the nation. For post-secondary education achievement, only 13% of Hidalgo County’s adults has a bachelor’s degree or better compared to 23% for Texas and 24% for the nation. Just 4.5% of Hidalgo County residents have a graduate or professional degree, while 7.6% of Texans and 8.9% of the U.S. population have achieved this level of education.

We all know that the more education a person acquires, the greater that person’s earning power is. Access to education is the greatest leveler in a society. The low level of educational attainment in the Rio Grande Valley, and Hidalgo County in particular, reflects the downside of this axiom.

According to the 2000 Census, Hidalgo County had a per capita income of only $9,899, less than half the national average of $21,587. The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission MSA ranked among the last five in per capita personal income among all the MSA’s in the United States. The three border MSA’s from Laredo to Brownsville rank among the bottom ten in the nation for per capita personal income.

Census figures also show that 36% of Hidalgo County’s population lives in poverty, a rate three times that of the US population (12%) and more than twice that of Texas (15%). A contributing factor is the presence in the valley area the majority of the nation’s colonias.

Although, these statistics indicate that there is much to be done, the region has come a long way. According to an article published in the Wall Street Journal "Pan American has served as the means to the mainstream for recent generations of this region’s long disadvantaged Hispanic majority…Only now, is the number of alumni in McAllen and other border communities reaching a level that gives them the social, political and economic clout of a fully fledged middle class."

In the last 10 years we have seen postsecondary education more than double in Hidalgo County alone. With the local community college enrollment, students in higher education number over 29,000. Our students want to learn with a passion, they strive to achieve a better life for themselves and their families, and they persevere and are persistent in obtaining their higher education.

The University of Texas-Pan American has made a difference by providing higher educational opportunities to South Texas residents and by helping to create a Hispanic middle class of citizens.

The University of Texas-Pan American is the leading institution in this under-served and underrepresented area of the nation. We offer 56 bachelors, 42 masters, 2 doctorates, and a cooperative doctorate in Pharmacy with UT Austin.

While we offer many degrees, we need to be sure that we get qualified students in the doors. The educational pipeline is broken as only 55% of ninth grade students in Region One graduate from high school. Of those who graduate another small percentage go on to some type of higher education.

An important feature of the University of Texas-Pan American enrollment is the high concentration of Hispanic students; currently, Hispanic enrollment constitutes about 87% of the total. The total number and percentage of Hispanic enrollment is expected to increase over the next ten years. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board projections indicate that we will reach an enrollment of 20,000 by 2010. This fall our enrollment is just under 16,000 students. I believe that we will surpass the projections much sooner. However, we will not be able to serve these increasing numbers of deserving and qualified students unless increasing amounts of financial aid are available, and more in terms of grants than loans.

In working with the public schools, we have increased the number of students who have taken the recommended high school curriculum or "college prep curriculum". In 1993 only 25% of our beginning freshmen graduated with the recommended high school curriculum. Today, nearly 90% of our entering freshmen have graduated with this curriculum and are better prepared for college work.

The federal government has funded our GEAR-UP program which assists, supports, and educates one cohort of students beginning in seventh grade. These students are now in high school and so far results are extremely positive, but we are concerned about the thousands of public school students who do not have access to GEAR UP. We are attempting to institutionalize the programs that are successful with this particular cohort, but, school districts have limited funds to sustain the efforts and so do we.

Another access issue has resulted from the1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act. This act removed the ability of states to determine residency for the purposes of higher education benefits. This act prohibits aliens who have come to the United States as children and successfully completed high school in Texas to qualify for Federal financial aid, and for in-state tuition. We are betraying students who have worked hard in our public schools, persisted and graduated, who are then denied the higher education assistance available to their peers who are in similar socio-economic circumstances.

Not graduating from high school and not being prepared for college work are critical issues that hamper access to higher education for our students. The next obstacle is affordability.

I know you are all aware that state contributions to public higher education are dwindling nationally. Budget crises from state to state affect all of us in higher education. Students who do go to college are being asked to contribute more of the costs for their education. For many this does not present a problem, but for our students who have to work just to break even, with increased tuition costs, additional burdens are being placed upon them.

The national trend seems to be forming a division between the haves and the have-nots once again, a situation that was prevalent before the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Those who can afford to pay for higher education will obtain it and those who cannot will be left behind. The citizens in our area have been left behind for too long.

In fall 2000, the most recent data available, among all Texas public 4-year institutions, UTPA reported the highest percentage (42%) of first-time entering undergraduates with zero-dollar family financial contributions to their education. With financial aid not covering the total cost of education for the economically disadvantaged, even at a relatively low-cost institution such as UTPA, our students are obliged to work, often full-time, as they attempt to complete their bachelor’s degrees. Added to this is the burden of caring for family members – not just children, but also parents. Indeed, the results of the National Survey of Student Engagement show that UTPA first year students spend more hours working for pay off campus, more hours caring for dependents, and more hours commuting than students at our peer institutions; this translates to fewer hours preparing for class, and fewer hours in co-curricular activities.

Recent surveys of students and parents in UTPA’s GEAR-UP program show increasing pessimism about the affordability of a college education. In 2001, 42% of students and 45% of their parents thought they could afford post-secondary education. In 2003, the percentages had fallen to 30% for students and 38% for their parents. And this is in a program that is geared toward informing students and their families about the costs of education and the ability of financial aid.

There has been a discouraging shift over the past years from grants to loans as the primary means of financing higher education for many of our students. This shift has been a disservice to all of us.

Retention and Success.

While access and affordability are critical for bringing students to the gates of academe, it is essential that institutions offer support services and an environment conducive to their success during their academic career. One of UTPA’s overarching goals is to improve student access and success.

UTPA has increased its first-year retention rate of new freshmen from 55% for the fall 1999 cohort, to 66% for the fall 2002 cohort. Our target is to increase first-year retention by a percentage point each year.

UTPA’s six-year graduation rate, the standard in the United States, is not stellar. For the fall 1995 entering cohort, 6 years later, only 23% had graduated from UTPA. However, if one tracks the success of students in that cohort who have graduated from other institutions in the state or who have persisted and are still enrolled here or elsewhere after 6 years, the "success" rate increases to 50%, a rate more in line with other regional public institutions. A local cohort study found that, after 10 years, 54% of the 1992 cohort had graduated from UTPA or other higher education institutions. This study allowed for the crediting of "stop-outs" who return to college in the cohort graduation figures; this is not calculated in standard cohort studies at the state or national level. The impact of increased freshman retention is expected to reveal itself in increased persistence and graduation rates in the next few years.

Another of UTPA’s overarching goals is to be a state leader in the preparation and production of public school teachers. UTPA has been among the top producers of certified teachers for many years, and has been THE largest producer of bilingual teachers in the United States.

Expanded Research

As one of the major population centers of the state we ought to be served by a major research institution. Hidalgo County is the 7^th largest in the State and if we add Cameron County, the numbers exceed the population of El Paso.

UTPA is, therefore, striving to become a Doctoral/Research Intensive institution. Such institutions benefit their service areas not only through the availability of an array of degree programs appropriate to the needs of the region but also through focused research and research-based public service activities that are intended to increase the understanding of the region and improve the quality of life within the region and beyond. UT Pan American is well-positioned to serve the South Texas region as a regional research university.

UTPA is developing an institutional research agenda that focuses and concentrates research efforts and support on selected areas of regional significance. Four broad areas of emphasis will be bilingualism, biomedical science and engineering (directed at health and quality of life issues relevant to the South Texas Border area), border life and international relations, and the subtropical environment and ecology.

UTPA has an ambitious goal for research. We plan to have $20 million in research funding by 2010. This is an significant increase from our FY02 accomplishment, but we feel that striving toward a doctoral research institution will necessitate and also enable us to achieve this goal.