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The article below appeared in the April issue of Hispanic Outlook on Education Magazine.

RVCC Programs Offer Hope, Opportunities, and Support for Latino Students

Raritan Valley Community College supports Latino students through outreach programs like CRECER and EOF, offering mentorship, financial aid, and academic resources to ease college transitions, improve success rates, celebrate Hispanic culture, and foster community engagement and educational opportunity.

For many young Latinos, their introduction to Raritan Valley Community College (RVCC) begins with CRECER, the College’s outreach program for Hispanic students.

Held annually for more than 25 years, CRECER (meaning “to grow”)—and an acronym for Caring, Reaching, Educating, Connecting, Enriching, and Reaping—brings Latino students from area high schools to RVCC to help ease the transition to college. For some, the campus-wide event for approximately 200 students from underserved schools is their first experience with college life.

During the daylong event, students tour the Branchburg, NJ-based campus and meet with representatives from a variety of student services areas, academic departments, and workforce training programs. CRECER aims to introduce Latino students to the vital tools they need to succeed in college. The initiative, which connects participants with Latino role models and essential College services, helps support students’ academic growth and offers opportunities for career exploration. The event also celebrates Hispanic culture through music, food, and dance.

Organized by the Admissions and Recruitment department, CRECER receives assistance from the College’s Orgullo Latino club, led by club president Julio Marsiglia, 21. Members of the club—which offers celebration, engagement, leadership, education, and mentorship—serve as bilingual tour guides and help moderate student discussions. Marsiglia, a Liberal Arts major who plans to teach high school Spanish in the future, says he wants to show CRECER participants that RVCC is affordable and within their reach. He also hopes to share his pride as a Latino student at the College.

Marsiglia says that by interacting with other Hispanic students involved with campus life, CRECER participants meet people who are “just like them” and who are thriving in college. “They see hope and faith and opportunities,” says the resident of Flemington, NJ, whose parents emigrated from Colombia.

These students may then find a home at RVCC, which was designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution in 2022. Currently, 34% percent of the College’s full-time students identify as Latino. RVCC has a total enrollment of close to 6,800 students and serves New Jersey’s Somerset and Hunterdon counties (at 18% and 10% Hispanic respectively).

Approximately 42% of degree and certificate-seeking students at the College received some form of financial aid in 2023-2024, and 31% of degree and certificate-seeking students received Federal Pell Grant funds during that same period. In the last academic year, 822 Latino students at RVCC received more than $3.7 million in Federal Pell Grants. Overall, 1,080 Latino students received a total of $6.2 million in aid.

Highlighting the importance of Hispanic students at RVCC, a Pillar of the College’s current Strategic Plan includes metrics focusing on the graduation and transfer rates of Latino and Black/African American students. Indeed, Latino students at the College have shown increasing retention and graduation rates. Since fall 2020, the number of Latino students at RVCC has grown by over 22%, while overall student enrollment at RVCC has decreased by 4%. During this period, retention rates for first-time, degree-seeking Latino students have increased by more than 3%, and graduation rates for this population have increased by over 4%.

Much of this achievement is the result of programs like the Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF), which provides financial, academic, and personal development resources to students who are traditionally underserved. Its current enrollment of 216 students is 48% Latino.

RVCC student Esmeralda Ochoa, 20, whose parents are Guatemalan immigrants, credits her participation in EOF with keeping her in college. While Ochoa excelled academically in high school, her first semester at RVCC was less successful and she even considered dropping out of college.

“Without the EOF program, I wouldn’t be standing here at RVCC today,” says the Flemington resident. The EOF staff members “believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. They are my mentors that I will never forget. They have provided me with nothing but support and kindness.”

Ochoa, who now has an A average, plans to attend law school in the future. The Communication Studies major visits area high schools with EOF staff members to speak about the program and share her story with other Latino students. She lists the many ways EOF has helped her through her educational journey, in addition to assisting her financially. This includes guiding her through decision-making, offering academic mentoring and extra assistance in the Tutoring Center, and even providing emotional support when times were especially challenging.

Being an EOF Scholar, Ochoa says, “has given me motivation to succeed in life.” She believes the program helps her and other first-generation students to fully appreciate their own potential. “As a Latina, I feel there is nothing but support” at the College, she says.

RVCC also offers a variety of services for Latinos and other underserved students to support their personal, academic, and future career success. These include a Sanofi US Corporate Mentor Program that offers in-person mentoring from managers at Sanofi’s office in Bridgewater, NJ, job shadowing, internships, and scholarship support, and a campus Resource Center and Food Pantry for those dealing with food insecurity.

Other resources available for Latino students and other Spanish speakers in the community include an “En Español” section of the College’s website, as well as a tool that translates the website into Spanish and other languages.

For those needing additional financial assistance, a variety of scholarships are available for Latino students and those from underserved communities, administered through the RVCC Foundation. The Latino Legacy Scholarship aids Hispanic students majoring in Business Administration, Business Management, General Business, Information Technology, Computer Science, or Data Science. The Joel F. Reyes-Guzman Scholarship, established by RVCC alum Joel Reyes-Guzman, offers support for Bound Brook High School graduates, a local school with a large Latino population.

Reyes-Guzman, whose mother emigrated from Oaxaca, Mexico, is a Bound Brook High School alum who graduated from RVCC in the fall of 2014 with degrees in Mathematics and Engineering Science. He also received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Currently based in Los Angeles, he is an Airline Support Engineer with The Boeing Company.

Now a member of the RVCC Foundation Board of Directors, Reyes-Guzman says, “My ability to ‘pay it forward’—yes, I know, cliché, but no less true—through the scholarship I’ve established at RVCC could not be more gratifying. If I can help one student each year—whether it’s financial support, mentorship, or some combination of the two—I am both serving and being fulfilled by the community so near to my heart.”