March 23, 2015

The Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), the nation’s champion of Hispanic higher education success and the only nationally recognized voice for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) presented its Legislative Agenda for the 1st Session of the 114th Congress to address Hispanic higher education needs as well as critical K-20 pipeline issues.

Hispanics suffer the lowest high school and college graduation rates of any major racial/ethnic demographic population group; in addition, on a per student basis, HSIs on average continue to receive only sixty-nine cents for every federal dollar to all degree-granting institutions.

HACU’s Legislative Agenda addresses federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 appropriations requests for the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, as well as the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

It also proposes long-range priorities for the reauthorizations of the Higher Education Act (HEA), Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), and the America COMPETES Act, and includes a policy statement on the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) and programmatic recommendations for the Departments of Veteran’s Affairs and Health and Human Services. 

The HACU Legislative Agenda distributed at HACU's National Capitol Forum on Hispanic Higher Education is available online.  For additional background information on HACU's 2015 advocacy agenda, click here.