12:00 AM CDT on Friday, July 21, 2006

Associated Press

AUSTIN – Texas is not on track to meet its goal for increasing college and university enrollment and must do more to persuade the state's growing Hispanic population to pursue higher education, according to a report issued Thursday by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

More than 1.2 million Texans were enrolled in higher education this past school year, but enrollment only grew by 11,225 students between the fall of 2004 and 2005, the smallest increase in the five years since the state adopted improvement targets. Also, Texas fell more than 20,000 short of its goal to enroll 340,000 Hispanic students by 2005.

"We have our work cut out for us," board member Neal W. Adams said.

The enrollment targets are a piece of the state's four-part Closing the Gaps initiative.

Part of the problem with Hispanic enrollment is that individual universities aren't setting high enough goals to meet the state's target, said Susan Brown, the agency's assistant commissioner of planning and accountability.

By 2010, the state hopes to enroll 474,000 Hispanic students. But even if each university met its specific goal, that would only add up to about 368,000 students, she said.

New state laws requiring students to take more rigorous high school classes should lead to higher university enrollment and graduation rates because students will be better prepared for college-level work, Ms. Brown said.