Lists of Top 100 Colleges and Universities for Hispanics/Latinos
In 2025, our annual lists of Top 100 Colleges and Universities for Hispanics, Top 50 Community Colleges for Hispanics, and Top 50 Graduate Schools for Hispanics - based on the latest federal NCES IPEDS data - once again recognized the specific colleges and universities across the country that serve the highest numbers of Hispanic/Latino students (in terms of highest enrolment and degrees granted, by award level and field of study). An analysis of this data also allows us to see general trends in the growth, location and concentration of Hispanic/Latino students across these institutions.
One of the most important trends highlighted by all of this year’s lists is that the overall presence of Hispanic/Latino students across all higher education levels (associates, bachelors, and graduate) and types of institutions (2-year and 4-year) continues to grow, albeit at a higher rate at the undergraduate level and a slower but steady rate at the graduate level. Another clear trend is that the majority of institutions serving the largest numbers of Hispanic/Latino students continue to be public, especially at the undergraduate level. These institutions are located in a variety of states, although a large proportion of them are in California and Texas. Finally, when looking at the aggregate numbers, Latino women continue to enroll and obtain degrees in larger numbers than Latino men, across all levels (although not across al fields of study).
With regard to growth at different levels, our H.O. Top 100 Colleges and Universities for Hispanics lists reveal that Hispanic/Latino enrolment overall, at both 2-year and 4-year schools, shows continuous growth since 2021-22, with a more notable increase at 4-year schools. Thus, enrolment at 4-year schools continues to be higher than enrolment at 2-year schools. At the same time, however, graduate degrees for Hispanic/Latino students are still lagging far behind associate degrees and bachelor’s degrees, with around three times less degrees granted at the Masters level than at the others. Our 2025 Top 50 Community Colleges for Hispanics lists are divided into two categories: “traditional” 2-year institutions with associate degrees as the highest degree granted, and community colleges that offer bachelor’s degrees as well, and are thus defined as 4-year institutions. In both these categories, Hispanic/Latino enrolment has grown at an accelerating rate since 2021. It is notable that, according to IPEDS data for Fall 2023, nearly as many Hispanic/Latino students were enrolled at the top 50 four-year community colleges as were enrolled at the top 50 two-year colleges, highlighting the growing importance and presence of bachelor-degree-granting community colleges. The Top 50 Graduate Schools for Hispanics 2025 lists indicate a continuing trend of modest growth in Hispanic/Latino graduate enrolment at the top 50 institutions, which increased by 6,062 Hispanic/Latino students between 2020-21 and 2021-22, and again by 4,068 students between 2021-22 and 2022-23.
These lists also shed light on the type of institutions that serve the largest number of Hispanic/Latino students: in 2023-24, all 2-year schools included in the Top 100 lists were public, and 87 of the 4-year schools were also public. When community colleges are broken down into those that offer associates degrees as the highest degree granted and those that also include bachelor’s degrees, the public sector is still predominant, as it includes all of the top 50 institutions in both lists. At the graduate level, however, institutions on the top 50 list are more mixed, with 28 of them from the public sector and 22 from the private sector; it is also notable that among the top 10 of these graduate institutions, the majority (8) are private.
This year, in addition to our annual lists of top schools for Hispanics, we offered readers a deeper look into a few specific areas where Hispanic/Latino students tend to be under-represented: medical schools, graduate studies and study abroad. We also offer an overview of the current landscape of areas of study related to Hispanic/Latino cultural roots: Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Spanish Language Studies.
Top Medical Schools for Hispanics/Latinos
Given the overall shortage of physicians, it is important to include more diverse students in medical schools; however, minority, immigrant and low-income students are under-represented in medical fields since they tend to find the entrance requirements, higher fees and longer duration of medical school particularly daunting. Indeed, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the total number of Hispanic/Latino physicians represents only 6% of all physicians nationally. This year’s piece on Top Medical Schools for Hispanics sheds light on the specific number of Hispanic/Latino medical students: according to data provided by the AAMC for all 158 accredited, MD-granting medical schools across the country, Hispanic/Latino students represented 6.7% of the total number of students enrolled in medical schools in 2024-25, and 6.6% of all medical school graduates in 2023-24. Among Hispanic/Latino students, Mexican-Americans were the largest subgroup of enrolled medical students (30%), followed by Puerto Rican students (24%). As with the more general enrolment trends shown in H.O.’s other annual lists (mentioned above), there were more Hispanic/Latino women enrolled in medical schools than men.
The article also presents the top 20 medical schools that enroll and graduate the highest numbers of Hispanic/Latino students – indeed, these schools serve one-third of all Hispanic/Latino medical students. The data reveals that the majority (80%) of these top 20 medical schools are public, and half are Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Among the top five Hispanic/Latino-enrolling medical schools, four belong to the University of California system; the top five Hispanic/Latino-graduating schools include universities from a variety of states. All of these top Hispanic/Latino-serving medical schools belong to broader research universities and most are also attached to university-run hospitals; many of these rely heavily on federal funding. This article includes specific data on cuts to federal grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH); these cancelled and possibly reinstated grants include numerous programs which support under-represented medical students, and those that promote medical sciences among high schoolers, among other initiatives to increase diversity. Thus, these cuts - together with other related funding adjustments to the healthcare system overall - may represent setbacks for the progress made in spurring Hispanic/Latino participation in healthcare fields, and have broader implications on access to healthcare among lower-income and underserved communities.
Gaps in Hispanic/Latino Participation in Graduate Studies
In Closing the Gap: Pew Study Calls for More Latino Graduate Students, longtime contributor Gary Stern offers a look into recent Pew Research Center data, which reveals that only 7% of Latinos aged 25 and older hold a graduate degree; the majority of these hold a Master’s degree, with very low numbers earning PhDs. In addition, foreign-born Hispanics/Latinos have lower graduate degree rates than U.S.-born Hispanics/Latinos. Low participation in graduate studies can be attributed to financial barriers, limited guidance, and the overall challenges faced by first-generation students. This data is concerning, given that graduate degrees are increasingly necessary for obtaining higher-paying jobs and ascending career ladders.
In order to analyse this issue further, Stern interviews Mark Hugo Lopez, director of ethnicity research at Pew Research Center and co-author of the study, as well as Gina Ann Garcia, a professor at the University of California Berkeley School of Education and faculty director of the Latinx Thriving Initiatives. Both experts offer insights and possible solutions to boost Hispanic/Latino participation in graduate studies. Among other measures, they stress the need for increased accessibility, mentorship, and systemic reforms to boost Latino graduate success.
Study Abroad Opportunities at Community Colleges
Another area where Hispanic/Latino students tend to be under-represented is study abroad. Following up on articles in previous years dealing with this issue, this year we turned our attention to study abroad opportunities at community colleges, given that these colleges serve a large proportion of Hispanic/Latino students and are also known for providing more flexible opportunities, which makes study abroad more accessible. Indeed, in Broadening Access to the World: A Profile of Study Abroad at Community College, we analyze data from IIE’s 2024 Open Doors report to show that, although study abroad programs are far less prevalent at community colleges than at traditional 4-year colleges, they enroll a more diverse group of students. With regard to Hispanic/Latino students, there has been a steady increase in study abroad participation at community colleges over the past two decades. According to the latest data, 26.2% of all study abroad students at these colleges are Hispanic/Latino, a considerably larger proportion than at all institutions combined, where they only represent 12.2% of all study abroad students. Thus, it is perhaps unsurprising that among IIE’s list of top study abroad producing community colleges for 2022-23, more than half are Hispanic Serving Institutions, and half are also on H.O.’s lists of Top 50 Community Colleges for Hispanics/Latinos.
The article ends by highlighting the importance of the federal Gilman Scholarship Program, which provides study abroad funding for lower-income students (Pell Grant recipients). Nearly 60% of Gilman Scholars come from small towns or rural communities, and nearly half are first-generation college learners, a large proportion of whom attend community colleges. Funding for the Gilman Program was temporarily suspended at the beginning of the year, as part of the current administration’s emphasis on downsizing federal government programs and reducing international engagement. Although it was later reinstated, universities and study abroad organizations have urged Congress to ensure the continued funding of these programs, which the federal administration is legally directed to implement.
Profiles of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Spanish Language Studies Programs
Finally, in order to broaden the scope of our data-based reporting, this year we began a new series of articles which strive to inform our readers about the growth and current dimensions of fields of study related to Hispanic/Latino cultural roots. These include three main areas: Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Spanish Language Studies, and Latino/Chicano/Mexican-American Studies (although there are also other branches and sub-areas of these three as well). Each part of this series - based on IPEDS data for multiple years and using specific Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) Codes to define the parameters of the field - includes an overall profile of the number of institutions that offer these programs, the number of degrees granted, and data on the participation of Hispanic/Latino students, in order to obtain a broader picture of the ways in which Hispanics/Latinos are expanding knowledge of their roots as “heritage learners”.
The first instalment of this series, Cross-Cultural Learning (Part I): A Profile of Latin American and Caribbean Studiesreveals that there has been a notable decline in the number of reported LACS degrees/certificates over the past decade (since before the pandemic) and in the number of institutions offering LAC Studies; more research is needed to understand the reasons for this decline. In addition, the top LAC degree/certificate-granting institutions had much larger numbers thirty years ago; these have been dwindling steadily and the current top institutions granted less than 25 LAC degrees/certificates each (in 2022-23). Analysis of all the institutions granting more than 10 LAC degrees/certificates in 2022-23 indicates that the majority are public, they are widely spread out across 13 states, and more than half are federally-designated Title VI National Resource Centers (NRC) for Latin America, making them eligible for key grants. Only four are HSIs, yet most of these institutions have a large proportion of Hispanic/Latino LAC degree/certificate recipients (more than half of all LAC degree/certificate recipients).
Indeed, the proportion of LAC degrees/certificates granted to Hispanic/Latino students has increased dramatically, from only 25% of the total in 1994-95 to 60% of the total in 2022-23. This trend can be viewed as part of Hispanics/Latinos greater participation in higher education overall, and also as an expression of greater interest in exploring their roots. However, further research could reveal whether there has been decreasing interest in LAC studies on the part of other ethnic groups, or whether there is a wider trend wherein members of each ethnic group retreat into their own cultural silos rather than venturing to learn more about others.
We invite readers to follow up with the second instalment of this series, Cross-Cultural Learning (Part II): A Profile of Spanish Language and Literature Programs, which indicates some similar trends to the area of Latin American Studies, and also includes an additional list of Top SLL Degree/Certificate-Granting Institutions for Hispanics/Latinos.
