The five-year grant period that was funding Mi Casa, Mi Universidad, a project to help enrollment and graduation rates among Hispanic and Latino students, has expired, leaving the program in a transition period.
Cal State Long Beach was designated as a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI) in 2005, which made programs like Mi Casa, Mi Universidad eligible to receive federal funding.
In order for a university to qualify as a Hispanic-serving institution, the university must be nonprofit and have at least a 25 percent Hispanic student population, of which 50 percent must be low-income.
According to President F. King Alexander, the federal government and the U.S. Department of Education have rejected any new or recurring applications for funding for such programs due to steep federal budget cuts.
“We have worked to keep [the programs] working as best we can without the federal funds,” Alexander said. “We will continue to do so.”
According to Britt Rios-Ellis, director of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the CSULB Center for Latino Community Health, Leadership and Training, HSI programs are not disappearing, but instead, are merely in a transition period.
“This funding cycle is ending, but there is an additional $25 million dollars of HSI funding that will be used for many other programs on campus,” Rios-Ellis said.
Rios-Ellis said competition for grants is not easy and varies with the ups and downs of the economy.
“This particular mechanism is coming to an end, but it will continue to exist through the other mechanisms that have become permanent on campus,” Rios-Ellis said.
According to Rios-Ellis, the main objective of the HSI program is to give grants to inspire cultural awareness in an institution such as CSULB, and for this reason there is permanence in programs that help the Latino/Hispanic student body.
Although the Mi Casa, Mi Universidad program in particular will not be available for students, HSI programs for students of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), also known as Promotores de STEM, are still being funded and will be available in the fall.
“Whatever we had will continue in a different way,” Rios-Ellis said. “We have learned a lot about serving these students and have a lot of great things planned for the future.”