OGDEN — Weber State University President Brad Mortensen says there’s a practical component to the school’s new push to bolster Latino enrollment.

As the state grows, it’s going to need more and more skilled workers to maintain the expanding economy. Recruiting more Latino students, traditionally underrepresented in higher education, is a way to help create the educated workforce needed.

“It just is really being responsive to our community,” he said. “And if we’re going to prepare the workforce that our legislators and economic development leaders tell us we’re going to need for the future, we need to make sure we’re educating all of our populations, and the Hispanic community has been underserved, quite honestly.”

And now those standing efforts — which received redoubled significance with Weber State’s decision to pursue status as an Emerging Hispanic-Servicing Institution — have new steam: $500,000 in grant funding from Ally Financial, a digital financial services company.

The funding, $100,000 a year for five years, “really gives us a boost” in things like diversifying Weber State’s staff and faculty and expanding the curriculum to align with Hispanic culture and history, Mortensen said. Such moves constitute some of the initial efforts in bolstering Latino enrollment, along with augmented recruitment of Latino students in public schools.

“I call their sponsorship the accelerator,” he said.

Weber State officials are pursuing status as an Emerging Hispanic-Servicing Institution, or EHSI, a U.S. Department of Education designation, which entails boosting Hispanic enrollment at the school to 15% of the student body. Currently, Latinos account for around 11% of the university’s student population.

The 15% threshold is a preliminary step toward the larger goal of becoming a Hispanic-Servicing Institution, or HSI. That requires a Latino enrollment of 25% and brings with it access to additional federal funding.

The push for EHSI and HSI status aligns with Weber State’s role as an open-enrollment university, catering to all qualifying students seeking higher education, Mortensen said. The goal is outlined in the university’s five-year strategic plan, called Weber State Amplified.

Notably, though, it also comes amid particularly strong growth in Utah’s Latino population.

“The Hispanic/Latinx population is the fastest-growing segment of population across the state. That’s magnified here in Weber County,” he said.

The Ogden School District, he noted, is the only one in the state with a minority-majority population driven by Latinos. Some 50.2% of students in the district, 5,263 of the total, identify as Latino, according to figures for the 2021-2022 school year released earlier this month by the Utah State Board of Education.

Beyond that, he noted the sizable population of Latinos in Weber School District schools, 4,490 students, 13.7% of the total, and Davis School District schools, 8,179 students, 11.3% of the total.

Despite the growing population, Latinos historically lag non-Hispanic whites in education levels. According to Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit group that pushes for “higher education success” among Latinos, 60% of Latino adults as of 2017 had a high school education or less compared to 46% among non-Hispanic whites. Similarly, only 20% of Latinos had bachelor’s degrees as of 2019, lower than African-Americans (30%), non-Hispanic whites (40%) and Asians (61%), according to the group.

Aside from the questions of educational equity that such stats raise, Mortensen noted the potential impact to the economy of not bolstering the educational prospects of the burgeoning Latino population. “For Utah’s economy to remain strong and vibrant, we’re going to need that educated workforce. We can’t leave any segments of our society behind as we try to do that,” he said.

Weber State hopes to achieve EHSI status, requiring a student body of 15% Latinos, within five years. It hasn’t pinpointed a time frame to reach HSI status. The HSI designation would pave the way for additional scholarship opportunities for Latinos and other federal funding.

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