Southeast Texas P-16 Council

Lamar University led the nation in the number of graduate degrees in education awarded to Hispanics during 2010.

The university graduated 342 Hispanics during the year, according to The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, a national magazine dedicated to exploring issues related to Hispanics in higher education.

“In the field of education, Lamar University in Texas led the pack, awarding the most master’s and doctoral degrees to Hispanics,” wrote Mary Ann Cooper, special projects editor for the magazine. Lamar was one of seven Texas schools on the Top 25 list of graduate degrees in education conferred.

“This is clearly good news for Lamar University because we have identified and captured a demographic slice of the state that previously has not been available to Lamar University,” said Kevin Smith, Lamar’s senior associate provost. “It is great news.”

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Lamar University is “getting it right” by offering one of the nation’s most affordable online graduate programs in nursing, according to an online education consumer group that ranks nursing and healthcare schools for cost and credibility.

“Lamar is a top example of a public university that is using distance learning to make healthcare education physically and financially accessible to Texans in these hard economic times,” said Vicky Phillips, a spokeswoman for the Vermont-based consumer group.

The web site GetEducated.com ranked Lamar as the No. 2 most affordable distance degree for Texas graduate students seeking nursing education online. Its online students who live in Texas pay a low cost of about $11,005 for a distance master’s degree from LU, according to reviewers for the consumer group. (Out-of-state online students pay a higher cost of about $22,475.)

“The distance healthcare master’s degree offered by Lamar University and reviewed by Get Educated cost less than half the average of competing degrees in the same accreditation class,” said Phillips, Get Educated’s chief online education analyst. “Lamar’s distance-learning-degree programs are laudable examples of a publicly funded higher education institution ‘getting it right’ by providing affordable online degrees to working adults.”

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