Nearly 30% of San Diego’s population is Hispanic or Latino. This demographic, once underrepresented at UC San Diego, is increasingly visible on campus. After a decade-long initiative to earn designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, UCSD finally became HSI-eligible in Fall 2024, when Hispanic or Latino students comprised 25.4% of undergraduates. The growing Hispanic and Latino community on campus is now advocating more than ever for the school to obtain official designation from the U.S. Department of Education.

To be eligible for an official HSI designation, universities must have a full-time undergraduate population of at least 25% Hispanic students. Though UCSD meets the enrollment threshold for HSI eligibility, it has not yet been certified as one.

From 2011 to 2023, the University was an “Emerging HSI” — characterized by 15% to 24% Hispanic students — according to data from the UC InfoCenter. After this initial step toward designation, the University has initiated greater efforts to attract and support a growing population of Hispanic and Latino students. In Fall 2025, UCSD’s undergraduate student population was 25.6% Hispanic or Latino.

For students like fourth-year Ivan Escobedo and third-year Anaid Martinez, the growing number of Hispanic and Latino students is important.

Escobedo, marketing chair of La Familia de UCSD — a student organization fostering a supportive community for Latinx students — and Martinez, accountability chair of La Familia de UCSD, both expressed that an HSI designation would reflect the value of UCSD’s interconnected Latino community.

“Coming here and struggling to find a community in which I could rely on, it definitely made me see the importance of the HSI designation,” Martinez said. “It would be helpful to know that your community is being supported to the most that they can be supported.”

Escobedo shared how the HSI status’s representation of a large, supportive Latino community began to matter to him once he arrived at UCSD.

“When I think back to it, I really didn’t really consider, ‘Oh, is there a predominantly Latino community at this university?’” Escobedo said. “But I think coming here … that sort of community was really helpful, in a sense, to just find people to be around, rather than just being all alone.”

Escobedo and Martinez appreciate the range of resources for Latino students on campus, both academically and socially, and feel that an HSI designation would further benefit students’ opportunities.

“I do believe that getting Hispanic-Serving Institution designation would be very good for all Latino students, especially students like me that didn’t know how to go about higher education,” Martinez said. “There are a lot of resources, but I think we still need to work on supporting those that have not had the opportunity to get those resources.”

The University’s official commitment to earning this designation began in 2016, when 16.2% of the undergraduate student body was Hispanic or Latino, according to UCSD’s 2022 HSI Report. The school then established an HSI task force and work group to investigate ways to support more Hispanic and Latino students, staff, and faculty. In 2018, the University launched the Latinx/Chicanx Academic Excellence Initiative, a campuswide commitment to cultivating an inclusive Latinx and Chicanx environment. In 2021, with a 20.9% undergraduate Hispanic or Latino population, UCSD hosted the HSI Summit, which served as a focal point for the University’s effort.

Following the summit, the University promoted a number of new initiatives, including increasing financial aid funding under the Chancellor’s Associates Scholars Program; expanding resources for the Raza Resource Centro, a community hub for Latino students; and creating Mi Universidad, an English and Spanish platform that offers prospective students and their families information about UCSD academics, as well as professional courses in Spanish.

For both Escobedo and Martinez, the Raza Resource Centro is a unifying space.

“Raza Resource Center [is] like a home away from home,” Martinez said. “You just see the same people most of the days; they’re always there, they can help you out with homework, which classes to pick, and … that’s where I found out about the orgs that I wanted to join that were more Latina-based.” 

UCSD has worked to attract more Hispanic and Latino staff and faculty to foster an integrated, supportive community on campus and meet the undergraduate enrollment criteria for HSI designation. Through a Latinx Cluster Hire Initiative formed in 2021, the University laid out plans to hire 14 Latino faculty members who would contribute to their own departments as well as to the Chicanx and Latinx Studies Program and the Latin American Studies Program. These faculty members would also provide mentorship to a growing number of Latino students.

“The larger vision of LCHI is to meet students where they are: to allow undergraduate Latinx scholars to see themselves in the academe; and to (re)imagine their roles in their future professions with a deeper understanding of the community and past that made their education possible,” the 2021 proposal read.

According to academic personnel data from the UC InfoCenter, Hispanic or Latino individuals comprised 7.8% of the total faculty in October 2021. As of October 2025, they make up 8.8%.

The impact of a growing Latino staff and faculty is evident to Martinez, who described the inspiration she found in talking to a Latina therapist, a career she herself aspires to.

“It just brings me so much joy because she’s actually working in what I want to pursue in the future, so seeing that she did it, she made it, and she’s working here at UCSD … it brings me so much joy, and it makes me think that it is possible, and that we can make it,” Martinez said.

Though the next steps in UCSD’s HSI designation journey are unclear, the University’s eligibility reflects a growing Hispanic and Latino community on campus, along with an increased need to support and foster connections among Latino students, staff, and faculty.

“It makes me happy to find a Latino or Hispanic out in the wild and just be able to talk to them,” Martinez said.