Latinos continue to outpace all other racial and ethnic groups in growth at Cal State Bakersfield, according to the latest enrollment figures.

If current trends continue they will be the largest ethnic or racial group on campus by the end of the decade.

In fall 1998 there were 1,022 Latino undergraduate students from Kern County at CSUB and they made up 33 percent of the undergrad population. At the start of last week's fall quarter there were 1,572 Latinos in that group and overall they made up 37 percent of the student body.

In 1998 there were 1,346 white undergraduates from Kern. Whites made up 50 percent of the student body then. This fall quarter there are 1,716 whites who make up about 45 percent of all undergrad students.

CSUB Director of Institutional Planning Terry Dunn said he has yet to study all of the county statistics, but that if current trends hold the Latinos will become the largest ethnic or racial group on the campus in five to six years.

Asians, blacks and American Indians have flat-lined in terms of percentage changes.

So while whites and all major racial and ethnic groups continue to grow at CSUB, Latinos are growing the fastest.

The change in percentages is a dramatic shift over the last two decades. In 1980, 70 percent of undergraduates were white and just 13 percent of the students were Latino.

Kendyl Magnuson, CSUB's associate director of admissions and records, said research shows that Hispanic families have always wanted higher education, but the information on how to get it wasn't always readily available. Over the last generation information on things like financial aid and which high school college prep courses are necessary have been made more available.

"My feeling is that the (immigrant) parents came here so their children would have this opportunity," Magnuson said.

"I don't think it's a change in focus in the Hispanic family. I think it is a change in the accessibility of information," he said.

That was the case with Rosalea Garcia, 31, a senior sociology major. She said she never envisioned herself going to college while growing up. But while attending Arvin High School she said she was taught that college was there for the taking.

She has been going to college part-time ever since graduating from Arvin High in 1990, all the while raising two daughters. She and her husband are expecting a third child in December, the same time she plans to graduate with a bachelor's degree.

"My mother worked out in the fields. I see the importance of education. I didn't want to be out there," Garcia said. "Today people are seeing that you need more than just your high school diploma. You need more than your B.A. There is so much competition out there. With an education you have a chance."

She plans to pursue a master's degree with the hope of eventually having a career in social work.

Dunn said that according to the state Department of Finance, Latinos will pass whites as the largest ethnic or racial group in the Kern population sometime between 2010 and 2020. In the U.S. Census 2000 about 33 percent of Kern residents were identified as Hispanic and 56.6 percent as white.

The Latino population is younger than whites, meaning there's a higher percentage of college-age people in the Latino population.

The university may never know when Latinos become the dominant group on campus if Proposition 54 passes in October. The ballot measure prevents government agencies including public education from classifying people by ethnicity or race. There are certain exemptions for collecting the data and Dunn said there are some federal requirements for it. But he said it wasn't clear yet how that would apply to university research data.

Violeta Walton, 20, a Latina who grew up in Lamont, is in her sophomore year of a criminal justice major.

Her father died when she was 4 and her mother spent time in prison, she said. As a child she lived mostly with a family friend. For her, college was a chance at a different life.

"I'm the first in my family. I just wanted to make a difference. I didn't want my life to be like my family's," Walton said.

She said many Latinos she knows are going to college to have a better life than their parents.

"They see how their parents struggle," Walton said. "Most of my friends' parents worked in the fields. They (my friends) don't want to work hard labor."