The State of Higher Education for Latinx Californians

Latinx Student Success Is California’s Success

Latinx Californians have long understood higher education as a pathway to economic mobility, opportunity, and generational progress. As California’s largest racial and ethnic group, nearly 15 million Latinx Californians are fundamental to the state’s social, economic, and cultural vitality. Yet despite meaningful progress, persistent inequities in college preparation, access, transfer, completion, and post-college outcomes continue to limit opportunity for Latinx students—and California’s ability to meet its higher education and workforce goals.

The Campaign for College Opportunity releases The State of Higher Education for Latinx Californians, the culminating report in our three-part 2026 series examining outcomes and policy solutions for historically underserved students in California. Through an in-depth analysis of Latinx student outcomes across the state’s public education systems, the report examines college preparation, enrollment, transfer pathways, degree attainment, and economic mobility. In doing so, it highlights both the progress California has made and the immediate actions required to ensure Latinx students are supported to college, through college, and beyond college.

Since the groundbreaking series first launched in 2015, the Campaign’s State of Higher Education reports have informed key policy reforms and strengthened statewide efforts to expand college opportunity. In 2026, we are proud to advance this work with an expanded focus on economic mobility—recognizing that our responsibility extends beyond helping students access and complete college to ensuring they have opportunities available after graduation.

California has demonstrated that intentional policy and institutional reforms can improve outcomes. Latinx students have achieved gains in high school graduation, completion of transfer-level community college coursework, degree and certificate attainment, and UC transfer graduation. Latinx graduates from the UC and CSU also earn more than the state’s median annual earnings within five years, and graduates of California’s public four-year universities recoup their educational investment in less than one year. Yet progress remains uneven: nearly half of Latinx high school seniors graduate without completing the coursework required for UC or CSU admission, and just 18% of Latinx working-age adults hold a bachelor’s degree—less than half the statewide rate.

Achieving the college dream is not simply about reaching a campus or earning a degree. It is about building equitable and connected pathways that prepare students for college, support them through transfer and completion, and ensure they can access careers and economic opportunities that allow them to support their families, strengthen their communities, and build lifelong prosperity.

Because when Latinx students succeed, California succeeds.

Thank you to the Latino Working Class Project for their generous support as a commissioning partner. 

Together, these reports reveal where California has made progress, where racial inequities persist, and what it will take to build a higher education system that serves all students equitably.