Less than three years after becoming a Hispanic-Serving Institution and two years after receiving its first federal grant for HSI development, Goshen College learned this month that the U.S. Department of Education is terminating the funding and other support for HSI schools.

The federal government designated GC as a Hispanic-Serving Institution in January 2023, the fourth HSI school in Indiana at the time. The college qualified in part by having at least 25% of its undergraduate students identify as Hispanic/Latino. 

In October of that year, the Department of Education awarded the college a highly competitive $3 million Title V grant for Developing Hispanic Serving Institutions. The grant was expected to provide financial support for five years. 

Gilberto Pérez Jr., Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students, noted that the loss of funding challenges efforts to support students, as the HSI grant was utilized to establish the Academic Success Center, which offers academic coaching and resources to help every student to succeed in their classes.

Without the funding, some staff and faculty who were hired under the grant will be primarily impacted, but it will not affect students in any way.

The department determined that racial quotas in the HSI programs are not in line with constitutional requirements. Similar patterns have been observed in other MSI [Minority Serving Institutions], therefore, taking the funds to programs that don’t raise these concerns.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said, “Discrimination based upon race or ethnicity has no place in the United States. To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs.”

In response to this press release, Pérez Jr. said, “It’s not racial discrimination. What I think the HSI designation and the funding have done is that it has created more opportunities to access more students, all students.”

He said, “I would add, you know? Grants come and go. Student servingness doesn’t. Goshen College was serving students before the grant came, and Goshen College will continue to serve the students when the grant goes away.”

This comes several months after a national correspondent for NBC Telemundo visited the campus to interview people for an upcoming TV special on HSI schools. 

Telemundo journalist Lourdes Hurtado reached out to interview students and some staff to make a documentary segment about their experience in higher education and the impacts that the current administration is having on HSIs.

Pérez Jr. said that Hurtado requested many other HSIs around the country, but they rejected her offer of this project that she was building. 

By talking with Pérez Jr. and other members of the school’s administration, they agreed. They saw it as an opportunity to amplify the students’ voices and opinions on their experiences within the current administration and executive orders being implemented.

“There were about two to three goals, one to tell the Goshen College story, that we are an HSI and that we are serving students the best that we can,” Pérez Jr. said. According to President Rebecca Stoltzfus, “This fall, 29% of our traditional undergraduate students identify as Hispanic/Latino, compared to 6 percent in 2007.”.  

“…Second, was to give a voice to the students and how they are experiencing college in this new reality,” Pérez Jr. said.

It’s important for GC to give students a platform to voice their opinions during these times of uncertainty. Telemundo was aware of asking the students if they felt comfortable sharing their stories to ensure no one was put at risk. The current political climate instills fear in families, but these students attended the interviews with a mindset to empower the Latino community nationwide. 

“We chose to focus on the student experience,” Pérez Jr. said. During the interview, many of the students focused on the meaning behind getting an education and what it is all about. “I had some powerful answers… I teared up in one of the responses because it was so powerful.”

Javier Reyes, a student at GC, talked to Hurtado about how one of the core values of GC was to be a global citizen, from the SST programs that are offered here, and the challenges that the administration was putting on international students who came to the U.S. to study.

Reyes said, “we shouldn’t be afraid of the world. We should see the world as a place for us to learn, so we should go there and they should come here so we can learn from each other to be better global citizens.”