Lubbock officials predict one-third of the population of Lubbock will be Hispanic by 2010.
But campus statistics tell a different story about Hispanic presence at Texas Tech.
"The growth of student enrollment is more of a reverse procedure, meaning when Tech enrollment grows, Lubbock grows," said Senior Planner David Buckberry.
The City of Lubbock Web site reported a 24.7 percent increase in the Hispanic population from 2000 to 2008, bringing Lubbock's total Hispanic population to 31.8 percent, a percentage which is consistent with Texas as a whole.
Karl Eschbach, a demographer for the state of Texas, said 32 percent of the state's current population is Hispanic. He expects Texas' Hispanic population to increase to 36 percent by 2010, but he said the population growth is not consistent with Hispanic presence at college campuses across the state.
"I know that Hispanic college enrollment lags behind the population growth," Eschbach said. "We are aware that enrollment rates for this ethnicity fall behind the total number of Hispanics in Texas."
According to Tech's Institutional Research and Information Management Web site, 9.8 percent of enrolled students were Hispanic in the fall semester of 2000. In the fall of 2007, 12.1 percent of the university's enrolled students were Hispanic.
While the number of Hispanics enrolled is increasing slightly, Rosa H. Gallegos, associate director of Tech's Cross-Cultural Academic Advancement Center, said she believes family plays a large role in the number of Hispanic students attending college in Texas, and family support is important to Hispanic enrollment.
"Building their own family on campus is important," she said, "because that's the way students compensate for not having their own family here."
Gallegos acknowledged that the small portion of Hispanic students on Tech's campus is inconsistent with the Hispanic population statewide.
"We're at about 12 percent right now," she said, "but that's a very tiny part of the whole student body."
As Tech attempts to grow total enrollment, Gallegos believes the number of Hispanic students will grow too, and the Cross-Cultural Academic Advancement Center is preparing to welcome a more diverse student body.
"From my point of view, it all depends on the resources," she said, "The number of Hispanic students will only grow as much as our resources grow."
Be the first to comment on this article!