Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

A Profile of Hispanic Public School Students

V. Economic Characteristics

Hispanic students enrolled in public schools are more likely than their non-Hispanic counterparts to reside in households at or below the poverty level,11 28% versus 16%. Compared with non-Hispanic students, native-born Hispanic students (27%) in public schools are one-and-a-half times as likely to live in poverty, and foreign-born Hispanic students (35%) are twice as likely.

The median household income of non-Hispanic public school students is $60,372, and of Hispanic public school students it is $40,248. While 59% of non-Hispanic public school students live in households whose income exceeds $50,000, only 38% of Hispanics do.

The likelihood of living in a household with an income of more than $50,000 increases across generations for Hispanic public school students. Only a quarter (28%) of first-generation students live in a household with an income of more than $50,000, but this share increases to more than a third (37%) among second-generation students and nearly half (46%) among third-and-higher generation students.

For Hispanic public school students, the likelihood of living in a household with an income over $50,000 is related to the educational attainment of their parents.12 As the share of Hispanic students who live in households with incomes of $50,000 or more increases across generations, the share of Hispanic students who live with a parent who does not have a high school diploma decreases. Half (50%) of all immigrant Hispanic students live with a parent who has not obtained a high school diploma. This share decreases to 42% among second-generation and 16% among third-and-higher generation Hispanic students.

  1. For detailed information on how poverty status is determined, please see http://usa.ipums.org/usa-action/variableDescription.do?mnemonic=POVERTY. Due to the way in which the IPUMS assigns poverty values, these data will differ from those that might be provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.
  2. Data pertaining to parental educational levels are shown only for students living in a household with at least one parent. When a student resides with both parents, the highest level of parental education was used to assign parental education level.
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