Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) educated over two million Hispanic students during the 2021-22 school year, but continued to demonstrate extensive facility needs, according to a new U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report.
The cost to repair some vacant residential halls exceeds the cost of demolition, according to Hispanic-Serving Institutions officials. Damage shown from a GAO site visit.U.S. Government Accountability Office
GAO surveyed a representative sample of HSIs in the U.S., including Puerto Rico, and received generalizable responses from 169 colleges. GAO analyzed the most recent HSI data on college student and institutional characteristics (2021–2022), finances (2020–2021), HSI grant programs (2017–2022), and COVID-19 pandemic relief funds (2021).
The survey found that an estimated 43% of HSI building space, on average, needs repair or replacement. HSIs have an average deferred maintenance backlog of almost $100 million, based on the survey. An estimated 77% of HSIs have at least one deferred maintenance project that addresses a health or safety issue, while an estimated 65% have experienced at least one natural disaster or severe weather event in the past 5 years that has resulted in the need to repair or replace some facilities.
Although an estimated 43% of HSIs were satisfied with their overall access to funding, HSIs reported common challenges securing funding for capital projects — some 74% of public HSIs consider insufficient state funding to be a challenge toward addressing capital project needs, according to GAO's survey. A similar proportion of private HSIs reported facing challenges due to declining tuition and fees revenue.
GAO also found that HSIs face varied challenges in addressing the issues, such as rising construction costs, insufficient state funding, and declining tuition revenue.
