Study: Southwest states trail national average for Latinas with university degrees
Download mp3 (1.24 MB)UCLA says the number of Latina adults who earned at least a bachelor’s degree grew steadily during the first 21 years of this century.
But the final percentage in each Southwest border state came in below the national rate.
Nationwide, 20% of Latinas nationwide held a bachelor’s degree or higher as of 2021, according to UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Institute.
In Arizona, 16% of Latinas had a university diploma — equal to California, but trailing Texas and New Mexico.
The report's authors found that only one in 10 Latinos who were not citizens got a degree.
Undocumented people in Arizona were banned from paying in-state college tuition for most of the period studied. Arizona voters have since approved in-state college tuition for certain noncitizens.
