That shift should concern every American.
The latest report from Excelencia in Education, Latino College Completion: United States 2026, reminds us why. Latinos are projected to account for 91% of new workers entering the U.S. labor force by 2031. Nearly 70% of Latino adults already participate in the labor market, yet only 29% hold an associate degree or higher, compared with 49% of White adults. A college degree is associated with approximately $27,000 in additional annual earnings, but its value extends far beyond a paycheck. College graduates are more likely to participate in civic life, start businesses, adapt to changing industries, and help strengthen the communities in which they live.
Closing this educational gap is not simply an issue of equity. It is an economic necessity for the nation’s future. Yet, at precisely the moment America needs to expand educational opportunity, our national conversation is moving in the opposite direction.
The U.S. Department of Education’s recently finalized Student Tuition and Transparency System (STATS) and Earnings Accountability rule measures the success of academic programs primarily through graduates’ earnings. Programs whose graduates fail to meet federal earnings benchmarks risk losing access to federal student loans and, eventually, Pell Grants.
Students deserve transparency. Taxpayers deserve accountability. Institutions should never leave students burdened with debt and little opportunity. But accountability is not the same as reducing the purpose of higher education to a return-on-investment calculation.
When we define educational value almost exclusively by immediate earnings, we begin to redefine education itself. Disciplines that enrich our democracy, preserve our culture, prepare future teachers, social workers, journalists, artists, public servants, and countless other professions become increasingly difficult to justify—not because they lack value, but because the market does not always reward their contributions with the highest salaries. This is how anti-intellectualism works.
It rarely begins by declaring that education is unimportant. Instead, it gradually changes the questions we ask. Universities become job-training centers. Schools become budget lines. Students become future wage earners rather than future citizens. Success is measured by efficiency, profitability, and political advantage instead of curiosity, critical thinking, civic engagement, and opportunity.
Public education was never intended to serve only the economy.
It exists to prepare informed citizens, cultivate innovation, preserve knowledge, expand opportunity, and strengthen democracy. Public universities educate teachers who return to our classrooms, nurses who care for our families, engineers who build our infrastructure, scientists who solve tomorrow’s problems, entrepreneurs who create jobs, and leaders who serve our communities. Their purpose has always extended beyond what can be measured in a graduate’s first paycheck.
For Latino families especially, public education has represented something even greater: the promise that one generation’s sacrifice can create greater opportunity for the next. Limiting access to higher education does not simply reduce college enrollment. It narrows social mobility, weakens our workforce, and widens the gap between those with opportunity and those without.
History reminds us that societies become weaker—not stronger—when they devalue intellectual inquiry. Democracies depend upon citizens who can distinguish evidence from misinformation, understand history, think critically, engage respectfully with differing perspectives, and participate meaningfully in public life. Those are not incidental outcomes of education. They are among its most important purposes.
That national conversation has direct consequences for communities like Pasadena.
Here in Pasadena, we are engaged in passionate discussions about school safety, the preservation of trees, district finances, and school consolidation. Those conversations matter because they affect our children, our neighborhoods, and the future of our schools.
But we should be careful not to lose sight of what those conversations are ultimately about.
The mission of public education is not trees. It is not buildings. It is not politics. It is not lawsuits. It is not social media outrage.The mission is educating children.
Every discussion about facilities, budgets, environmental remediation, consolidation, should ultimately be evaluated by one question: How does this help us better educate students?
As resources become more constrained, local leaders are forced to make increasingly difficult choices among competing priorities. Those decisions deserve scrutiny and public debate. But we should also ask why those choices have become so limited in the first place.
If we spend all of our energy fighting one another over individual decisions while ignoring the larger forces reshaping public education, we risk winning today’s argument while losing tomorrow’s educational system.
Our community has long understood that education is a public good. We invest in our schools because educated neighbors build stronger neighborhoods. We support public education because today’s students become tomorrow’s teachers, healthcare workers, artists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and civic leaders.
America’s future depends upon an educated population capable of solving problems we cannot yet imagine. Our economy depends upon it. Our democracy depends upon it. Communities like Pasadena depend upon it.
In an era of growing anti-intellectualism, our responsibility is to protect the institutions that make opportunity possible and to ensure that every conversation about our schools begins and ends with the same guiding principle: Education must remain the mission.
Yarma Velázquez Vargas, PhD. is the PUSD Board of Education Trustee for District 7.
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