As we focus on community colleges in this issue, highlighting their role as essential springboards of social mobility for all students – including a large proportion of Hispanic/Latino students – we inevitably see their overlap with Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). This designation provides added strength to community colleges in terms of fostering diversity, and also in concrete financial terms, given the federal grants they become eligible for. As described in Excelencia in Education’s newly released Hispanic Serving Institutions 2026 Factbook, these grants sustain a plethora of initiatives that support not only Hispanic/Latino students, but all under-represented and low-income students, regardless of ethnicity.
HSIs as Providers of Equitable Opportunities for All Students
For more than 30 years, Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) have been at the forefront of efforts to provide an increasingly diverse U.S. population with equitable, comprehensive support for achieving academic and career success. The 1992 Higher Education Act recognized Hispanic Serving Institutions for the first time, and federal funding for the Developing HSIs Program began in 1995. The purpose was, and still is, to “meet a clear national need—ensuring that institutions with low educational and general expenditures, a high enrollment of needy students, and disproportionately enrolling Latinos students—a young, fast-growing, significantly underrepresented population—can fairly compete for limited federal funds to strengthen their institutional capacity”, which in turn supports broader access to a quality education, as explained by Excelencia in Education (HSI 2026 Factbook).
The HSI designation has sometimes been misinterpreted as an exclusionary “ethnic group” label for institutions that have made it their mission to serve a majority of Hispanic/Latino students. This could not be further from the truth. Firstly, institutions cannot become HSIs through a mission statement, or based on a historical background of serving certain students (as HBCUs are, for example). They can only be designated as HSIs if they meet three basic criteria of eligibility from Title III and Title V of the Higher Education Act: 1) high enrolment of low-income students; 2) low educational and general expenditures (in other words, an institution with a lower level of resources); and 3) 25% or more Hispanic undergraduate FTE (full-time equivalent) enrolment. After meeting these criteria, they are eligible to apply for competitive, discretionary federal HSI grants. Thus, by definition, HSIs must show a very concrete, measurable need for federal support: they have relatively fewer resources for serving a large proportion of low-income students (of all ethnicities), as well as a baseline proportion of Hispanics/Latinos, whose educational attainment lags behind their growing presence as the nation’s largest minority, and warrants specific attention. According to 2023 Census data, while 42% of White adults held a Bachelor’s degree or higher, only 21% of Latino adults had reached this level (US Census Bureau, Feb. 2023 press release).
Secondly, enrolment by headcount (not FTE) - which includes all part-time and full-time undergraduate students - shows that more than half of students enrolled at all 631 currently designated HSIs are not Hispanic/Latino: 55% are from other ethnic groups (Excelencia, HSI 2026 Factbook). As explained by Marybeth Gasman, executive director of the Center for Minority-Serving Institutions at Rutgers University, “the thing about HSIs is that they’re so diverse” – in addition to enrolling larger numbers of Latino students, “they also have large numbers of Black students and Asian students and low-income white students” (cited in The L.A. Times, Feb. 3, 2026).
Current Scenario: HSIs at Risk
Since 1994, the number of HSIs has increased dramatically, from only 189 then to 631 today. One-fifth (21%) of all U.S. higher education institutions are now HSIs, enrolling one-third of all the nation’s students and 65% of all Hispanic/Latino students. Funding for HSIs under Title V has thus also increased substantially over the years, reaching a Congressionally-appropriated $229 million for 2025. Institutions are awarded HSI grants for a five-year period; thus, in 2024, new awards were given to 49 grantees (worth $28 million), while 343 institutions were continuing their grants (worth over $191 million).
In Fall 2025, however, the new federal administration asserted that HSIs (and all Minority Serving Institutions) are unconstitutional, due to their use of enrolment thresholds based on race/ethnicity. Currently, the constitutionality of these programs is being dealt with through the judicial system. In the meantime, the Department of Education has overreached its authority by cancelling the 2025 funding appropriated by Congress and redistributing it to other programs, leaving the 49 new 2024 grantees without funds to continue with the 5-year projects they had started, and many continuing grantees with an estimated shortfall of $100 million. This has halted progress on initiatives ranging from strengthening career-aligned credentials, such as health programs that meet urgent workforce needs, to modernizing infrastructure and bolstering degree completion through expanded advising – all of which benefit all students. In 2026, Congress has once again appropriated $259 million for HSIs, but it appears that the Department of Education intends to meld these funds together with the Title III Strengthening Institutions Program (SIP), which offers limited capacity-building grants to a much larger pool of more than 1,000 eligible applicants, making it much harder to compete for funds (Excelencia, HSI 2026 Factbook).
A Broad Consensus on the Need to Defend HSIs
Both Republican and Democrat Hispanic congressional caucuses have spoken out to defend the need for HSI funding to be respected and restored. A group of Democratic Senators wrote a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon arguing that “unilaterally deciding that long-standing programs are unconstitutional, absent a ruling from the judiciary, sets a dangerous precedent and disrupts needed support that colleges and students rely on” (cited in EdSource, Feb. 26, 2026). The Congressional Hispanic Republican caucus sent a similar letter to McMahon, which states: “given the extraordinary value of these programs in strengthening America’s workforce and serving the very communities that have helped sustain our Republican majority, we respectfully urge you to reconsider this decision and ensure continued support for these vital programs” (HACU, October 9, 2025).
Major national higher education organizations and think tanks, as well as Hispanic/Latino educational organizations such as HACU and Excelencia, are advocating forcefully in favor of HSIs. They have pointed out that, contrary to the current administration’s arguments, HSIs are not discriminatory. HACU and Latino Justice PRLDEF, for example, will jointly intervene in the pending federal lawsuit that threatens to eliminate HSIs. They will argue that HSIs lawfully address educational opportunity gaps by “ensuring equitable allocation of federal resources” in a way that is “race-conscious but not race-exclusive”, given that the 25% benchmark is used to allocate institutional support, not to give preference to individual applicants (HACU, “Defending the HSI Program”). Francisca Fajana at Latino Justice emphasizes that “it is not about affirmative action. This is not about picking students and giving students a plus because they are Black, Latino or otherwise.” Rather, “it’s really about the institutions themselves building capacity” (cited in The L.A. Times, Feb. 3, 2026).
Deborah Santiago, CEO of Excelencia in Education, emphasizes that “HSIs are based on geography and demography, not preferential treatment. HSIs reflect where Latino populations live and enroll.” Thus, “directing resources to institutions where Latino students are concentrated, similar to directing resources to rural communities, is not race-based discrimination — it is pragmatic policy” (Santiago, Medium, Sept. 16, 2025).
These organizations have also argued that spending on this set of institutions is not wasteful or unnecessary; rather, it is essential for sustaining educational opportunities that have significant social and economic returns for the local and regional communities they serve. Santiago highlights that “HSIs represent more than one-third of the nation’s top institutions for economic mobility — reflecting a person’s ability to improve their economic status over the course of their lifetimes”, which thus adds immense value to families, communities, and the broader economy (Santiago, Medium, Sept. 16, 2025). Indeed, an Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP) analysis has found that the post-college earnings of HSI alumni indicate the same or higher levels of return on investment as those of alumni of other institutions (IHEP, Oct. 14, 2025).
Excelencia’s “Call to Action for Supporting HSIs” highlights that HSIs – as institutions with low endowments - make very efficient use of their resources to serve a rapidly expanding segment of college students – Hispanics/Latinos, as well as all overlapping groups of under-served students. Thus, supporting HSIs “is a strategic investment in America’s competitiveness, democracy, and shared prosperity. Ending HSI support would not erase racial disparities; it would ignore them and weaken the nation’s ability to develop the educated workforce and informed citizenry it needs”.
This is perhaps especially true for HSIs that are community colleges, given the essential role that these colleges have in supporting under-represented and low-income students through a variety of comprehensive services, flexible academic options and direct paths to workforce participation.
Sources
Excelencia in Education, Hispanic-Serving Institutions: 2026 Factbook, April 2026, at https://www.edexcelencia.org/research/publications/hispanic-serving-institutions-hsis-factbook
Excelencia in Education, A Call to Action: Supporting HSIs, at https://www.edexcelencia.org/research-policy/hispanic-serving-institutions-hsis/a-call-to-action-supporting-hsis#:~:text=The%20Case%20for%20Hispanic%2DServing%20Institutions%20(HSIs):%20Opportunity%20Meeting%20Talent&text=In%20recent%20weeks%2C%20we've,strategic%20investment%20in%20our%20democracy.
Deborah A. Santiago, “The Case for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs): Opportunity Meeting Talent”, Medium, Sept. 16, 2025, at https://excelenciaineducation.medium.com/the-case-for-hispanic-serving-institutions-hsis-opportunity-meeting-talent-3fe40448d271
HACU, Defending the HSI Program, at https://hacu.net/advocacy/defending-the-hispanic-serving-institutions-program/
HACU News, “Congressional Hispanic Conference calls for resuming funding of HSI grant programs”, at https://hacu.net/congressional-hispanic-conference-calls-for-resuming-funding-of-hsi-grant-programs/
Michael Burke, “Trump administration, Congress leave Hispanic-serving colleges confused over funding”, EdSource, February 26, 2026, at https://edsource.org/2026/trump-administration-congress-leave-hispanic-serving-colleges-confused-over-funding/752064
Institute for Higher Education Policy, “Hispanic-Serving Institutions Accelerate Access, Deliver Strong Economic Returns for Students”, October 14, 2025, at https://www.ihep.org/hispanic-serving-institutions-accelerate-access-deliver-strong-economic-returns-for-students/
Jacinda Nembhard, “New Report Reveals Nearly $459 Million in Cuts to Hispanic-Serving Institutions”, Rutgers Center for MSIs, October 9, 2025, at https://cmsi.gse.rutgers.edu/content/new-report-reveals-nearly-459-million-cuts-hispanic-serving-institutions
Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, “The Future of Federal Funding at Hispanic-Serving Institutions”, January 21, 2026, at https://shorensteincenter.org/resource/the-future-of-federal-funding-at-hispanic-serving-institutions/
Olivia Sanchez, “California colleges scramble to fill gaps left by federal grant cuts to Latino students”, Los Angeles Times, February 3, 2026, at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-02-03/california-colleges-scramble-to-fill-gaps-left-by-federal-grant-cuts-to-latino-students#:~:text=A%20spokesperson%20for%20the%20Department%20of%20Education,unconstitutional%2C%20in%20a%20response%20to%20that%20lawsuit.
United States Census Bureau, “Census Bureau Releases New Educational Attainment Data”, February 16, 2023, at https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/educational-attainment-data.html
