For 20-year-old Andrea Fonseca, higher education is more than just a degree — it’s a means to a brighter future.
“From my personal lineage and family in Venezuela, none of the [women] were able to pursue a college degree either due to financial reasons or personal obligations,” said the journalism major currently in her junior year at Florida International University. “I made it my foundational core to succeed in anything that I did.
But nothing prepared her for the reality of being the first in her community to step foot on a college campus.
“When I first started at the university, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t feel like I had any innate resources that I could connect with or ask questions to because [I was a first generation student].”
Enter the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, an organization that promises to empower and equip college students of Hispanic descent by providing services and financial aid.
Through the program, Fonseca has found scholarly community and been afforded opportunities beyond the classroom, including an all-expenses paid trip to California to network with giants like Marvel Studios and Amex Enterprises.
It’s also one of the many diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives President Donald Trump’s administration has admonished since the start of his term.
In a letter issued by the Department of Education on February 14, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor announced that the agency will begin “compliance checks” in higher education institutions starting Friday, February 28.
One of its top priorities? To eliminate DEI programs it believes justifies discriminatory practices.
While on Friday a federal judge put a hold on cutting off funds for such initiatives, these moves could eventually affect the student body makeup of schools in South Florida, an area that hosts some of the nation’s largest Hispanic-serving institutions (HSI), warns Dr. Tania Abouzeide, a student diversity and accessibility expert.
“This is a multicultural region that looks very different from the rest of the state of Florida,” she said. “[Students] may be looking outside of South Florida for options or, even worse, they may not consider higher education as an option at all.”
Local universities like Florida International University and the University of Miami are no strangers to government crackdowns on DEI programming. The former closed down it’s Department of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as well as its Office of Social Justice and Inclusion, after the state university system’s Board of Governors banned the use of state funds on such initiatives in May 2023. The former took down DEI-related resources from its website earlier this month after President Trump passed an executive order striking down DEI programs.
The Department of Education’s new crackdown could have a ripple effect on multiple aspects of campus life.
“There will likely be a loss of funding opportunities,” said Dr. Abouzeide. “We’ll likely also see retention changes, students may not persist, they may drop out, not graduate at all. And then we’re also going to see, which we’re already seeing, actually, a reduction of courses in college majors.”
As for minority students and DEI beneficiaries like Fonseca, the future remains uncertain.
“To these South Florida universities and colleges, I just hope they understand the gravity of this and what they’re removing and stripping away in terms of students,” she said. “They’re removing access to opportunities the university might take pride in.”
