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SALT LAKE CITY — Melany Navarro, a senior at Hillcrest High School in Salt Lake City, couldn't hold back a smile.
She came to Utah from Colombia just two years ago and, next fall, will be the first in her family to attend college. "That's a dream I always had," said Navarro, who plans to start at Salt Lake Community College.
More and more Latinos are attending college and other postsecondary institutions, but the number of Latino students finishing with degrees lags the white, non-Hispanic population, statistics show. In a bid to bolster the number of college-bound Latinos, and to encourage those in college to stay put, the Somos Foundation offers scholarships to those in the community and held a gala Thursday to honor this year's contingent of recipients.
"It's kind of nice to see support from my own community," said Nasly Proano, a junior at Brigham Young University and one of the 20 scholarship winners, like Navarro. Originally from Ecuador, she speaks English as a second language, which requires extra effort to keep up in class. The Somos Foundation program, she said, lets her know there are others who have her back.
The Somos Foundation, affiliated with the Utah Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, offers scholarships to graduating high school seniors in the Latino community and those already in postsecondary institutions. Lía Baez, a member of the Somos board of directors, said the broad aim is to increase access to educational opportunities within the Latino community.
"We welcome everybody," she said, including U.S. citizen Latinos, legal residents, refugees, asylum-seekers and undocumented students.
The dollar amount of the scholarships — $1,000 per student this year — varies depending on available funds, but money isn't the only element of the Somos Foundation program. Claudia Loayza, chairwoman of the board and a prior Somos Foundation scholarship recipient, said another big element is mentorship through the students' college years and beyond.
"We are really emphasizing that our engagement with the students doesn't end with the scholarship," she said. Board members, she told the assembled crowd at Thursday's gala, "are here for you."
Around $4 million in scholarship funds has been awarded to more than 800 students over the years thanks to the Somos Foundation initiative, which launched in 2002.
More Latinos are going to college
The formal Somos Foundation mission statement — to increase access to education for Latinos and to encourage professional development — doesn't make note of any specific educational disparities that Latinos face. Latinos accounted for 19.6% of K-12 students in Utah's public schools as of the start of the 2023-2024 school year, according to Utah Board of Education Data, and 15.1% of the overall population as of 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates
However, stats for 2021 from Excelencia in Education, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that promotes Latino student achievement, show differences in postsecondary achievement.
According to the group, 26% of Latinos aged 25 and up in Utah had earned an associate degree or higher compared to 50% of their white, non-Hispanic counterparts. The graduation rate for Latinos at two-year institutions in Utah was 26% versus 36% for non-Hispanic whites and 42% at four-year institutions versus 59% for non-Hispanic whites. Those disparities were slightly more pronounced than figures for Latinos at the national level.
Moreover, Excelencia in Education noted in a report released last month that Latinos are more likely than students from any other racial group to be the first in their family to go to college. They have a higher labor force participation rate than other racial groups, according to the report, "but are more likely to be represented in occupations with lower salaries."
Even so, more and more Latinos are going to college, technical schools and other post-secondary institutions. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Hispanics represented 21.5% of all students in postsecondary institutions in the United States as of 2022, up from 15% in 2012 and 9.9% as of 2000.
'She always wanted to improve herself'
The increase may be the result, at least in part, of parental prodding, at least judging by the comments of some of the Somos Foundation scholarship recipients.
Alek Ramirez, a senior at Wasatch High School in Heber City, said he received plenty of encouragement from his mom and dad. His parents are originally from Mexico and have each had to work two jobs at a time on occasion to make ends meet.
"They always told me to go to college so I could have a nice job, didn't have to work two jobs," he said. He's planning to attend the University of Utah to study mechanical engineering.
Rosa Jimenez, a junior at Snow College, told a similar story. She attended Thursday's gala with her younger sister, Laura Jimenez, a sophomore at Snow College and one of the scholarship recipients. Their parents, also originally from Mexico, didn't go to college, "so they pushed us to get an education," Rosa Jimenez said.
Navarro's mom, Jarsilia Monsalve, seemed ecstatic at the prospect of her daughter going to college, the first in the family to do so. Navarro is planning to start at Salt Lake Community College and later transfer to the University of Utah with a focus in physical therapy.
"It's incredible. I'm very happy for the opportunity," Monsalve said. "She always wanted to improve herself."
Also at Thursday's ceremony, the Somos Foundation presented Community Champion Awards to recognize Somos Foundation boosters. The recipients were Yudi Vargas Lewis, executive director of Hispanic-Serving Institution Initiatives at Weber State University; Ryan Westwood, who's been active in the Somos Foundation; and Robert Rendon, a Somos Foundation co-founder.
