Aiming Higher for Their Education, Students Gather at Shady Grove Event

Alex Morataya was a student on a mission as he walked around the National Hispanic College and Career Fair last week at the Universities at Shady Grove Conference Center in Rockville.

"I'm trying to get that education," said the 16-year-old junior at James Hubert Blake High School in Silver Spring. "I want a school that I really want to go to."

Morataya was not alone. More than 1,700 Montgomery and Prince George's county high school juniors and seniors took advantage of the opportunity to learn about college and scholarship options.

The event, featuring more than 60 colleges as well as the military, was organized by the National Hispanic College Fairs Inc., a Belle Harbor, N.Y., company, in conjunction with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to Latino students, and school officials from both counties.

Organizers said the purpose of the fair was to provide Hispanic students with information about the variety of higher-education options available to them.

"Data and research continually show that the number of Latinos attending college is much lower than it should be," said Nancy Carlson, a high school counselor specialist for the Montgomery County schools who helped organize the event. "We really want to let folks know these opportunities are available."

The fair capped three days of events focused on raising awareness about higher education and financial aid opportunities among Hispanic students and their families, Carlson said.

On Nov. 4, more than 400 students and parents gathered at Gaithersburg High School for a two-hour discussion in Spanish on issues that included college readiness and financial aid that was co-sponsored by the scholarship fund, said Teresita Vergne, a program director for the Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

The following day, about 100 parents and students attended a pre-fair informational session on some of the same topics at The Universities at Shady Grove.

Sam Granirer, executive director of National Hispanic College Fairs, said that the company has been running the fairs since 1998 and that they are usually held on college campuses so that students can see what one looks like. "It gives them an eye-opener to some degree," he said. "Hopefully, with this push, we're getting students to understand the value of higher education."

Maria Garcia, a counselor for students studying English as a second language at Gaithersburg and Watkins Mill high schools, said the fair teaches students, many of whom are first-generation Americans, what kind of information they should look for from prospective schools.

"For many of them, this is their first experience," Garcia said. "So we encourage them to do these things because we know how intimidating it can be. We want them to be comfortable."