Home Coronavirus Coverage How colleges are helping Latinx students cope with the pandemic – Education Dive

How colleges are helping Latinx students cope with the pandemic – Education Dive

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These students’ biggest needs are funding, technology and emotional support, according to recent surveys and student affairs professionals.

Jose Salazar doesn’t like to ask for help. An introvert, he finds just talking to people to be draining.

But when Salazar lost his job waiting tables in mid-March for, as he tells it, not being “bubbly enough,” and his landlord told him he had to move out, the college junior knew he had no choice. With coronavirus cases climbing and campuses closing daily, he summoned the courage to ask the staff at Long Beach City College, in California, for help.

His college found him a place to live, gave him $500 for rent, and provided him with a computer and Wi-Fi hotspot for the midsemester shift to online learning.

“I really had to put myself out there,” said Salazar, whose family emigrated from Mexico when he was two months old. “It was hard, but it was worth it.”

The coronavirus has upended the lives of college students nationwide, but it’s having a disproportionate impact on some groups of people, including Latinx students and their families. They’re more likely than their White peers to have lost jobs; more likely to have had insufficient access to food and housing, and less likely to have the technology that makes remote learning possible.

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