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Somers Woman Helps Guide Hispanics Through College Admissions Process (Tap Into)
SOMERS, N.Y.--The Hispanic population has fewer students graduating from college than any other ethnic group in the county and one Somers resident is trying to change that.
Shirley Acevedo Buontempo, 54, is the founder and executive director of Latino U College Access, a nonprofit that helps Hispanic students get into college and supports them until they get their degree.
Acevedo Buontempo, who left a decade-long marketing career to work with local nonprofits in Westchester for 10 years, said she was inspired to launch Latino U in 2012 while she was helping her own daughters—now 24 and 21—through the admissions process for college.
“I became very aware of how complex, competitive and expensive the process was,” Acevedo Buontempo said. “I was going to graduate school for my master’s at Pace University and was doing research on educational equity and recognized that the Hispanic community had the lowest admission rates to college of all ethnic groups.”
According to the Pew Research Center, until 2013, Hispanics were the least enrolled ethnicity in college.
The same study showed that Hispanics are less likely to graduate with a four-year degree than other groups. In 2014, 15 percent of Hispanics ages 25 to 29 had a bachelor’s degree or higher. It was the lowest percentage among the same age group of other ethnicities.
“That gap in education and the complexity of the process was really what inspired me to say that something needed to be done. There were a lot of great kids going to local high schools in Westchester that can go to college but are not achieving their goals because of the complexity and the barriers they face in admissions and financial aid.”
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