If Hispanics in general face serious problems in the educational system from the start, women face even greater problems, such as stereotypes, ethnic, racial, and gender discrimination as well as difficulties arising from their own social environments, that often marginalize them or prevent them from otherwise reaching their potential. To this it has to be added that 53% of Hispanic women are pregnant before reaching 20 years of age (double the national average) and this increases their difficulties in attending classes.
In part, this explains why 41% of female Hispanic students don’t finish high school. This lack of a high school diploma has negative implications in these students’ later educational and emplyoment opportunities, economic security, general prosperity, and health conditions, etc, as was recently demonstrated in a report by the Nacional Women´s Legal Center (NWLC) and the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Foundation (MALDEF).

This social sector urgently needs solutions specifically adapted to them, as young Hispanics are the segment of the American population with the highest rate of growth among female students. The old saying that “educating a woman is educating a nation”, is truer than ever, because in future years, these women will hold the future of our nation in their hands.
Now is the time to turn around the drop-out rate among Hispanic women and to do it through a return to traditionally conservative values, that have a long history of achieving extraordinary results for women.

In combination with academic studies, an ethical, moral and religious education that emphasizes values, effort, and responsibility will permit young Hispanic women to overcome the obstacles that they face daily in their communities. Dealing with these circumstances often requires a strong, responsable and audacious character. Developing a strong character and sense of values will permit these women to complete their studies and distance themsleves from problems with drugs, alcohol, and undesired pregnancies.

Higher education is an objective that Hispanic women share: 98% of Hispanic women aspire to become university graduates. Making these dreams a reality is not a question of party affiliation, but of effectivity and progress. Conservative politics propose effective solutions to the challenges that achieving this goal present: poverty, immigration, English language mastery, parents’ participation in the educational system and the learning process of their children, sexual responsibility, extracurricular and athletic participation, etc. This will permit the nearly 50% of Hispanics that now attend universities or colleges to continue to increase; consequently, the 54% of Hispanics that participate in the labor market, will also continue to grow; the 19% of Hispanic women that neither study nor work (generally as a result of early motherhood), will as a result, continue to be reduced.

Schools are the first battlefield where Hispanic women will have to fight to end the stereotype of the young woman who drops out of school, becomes pregnant, gets mixed up with gangs, and later becomes a single mother, and a low-salary worker. Guidance is key to the future success of young Hispanic women, but not just any guidance. Guidance must come in the form of policies consistently applied to all students and based on fundamental ideas young Hispanics can relate to, policies that are rigorous and help students achieve their goals with well-defined objectives.
In this issue, as in others that American society faces, conservatism offers certain guarantees of success that other ideologies can’t yet equal. Achieving that those individuals who are responsible for education and politics actively act in favor of young Hispanic women, is key not only to a more brilliant future for these young women, but also for the entire country, to which these women will contribute their talent and capababilities.
Just as Hispanic women need the help of the United States to succeed, the United States also needs these women to be successful in order to together build a better future for all Americans.