Spring break is just around the corner. As students flock to the beaches or ski slopes for a welcome break from studies, it is also a time for marketers to inquire how Hispanics fair in regards to education. As can be expected, Hispanics have left a unique online footprint in the education category and are a quality audience target.

US Hispanics are on par with the overall general market in the unique visitor metric, education category, year to year growth Jan 06.

As shown in the chart above, unique visitors increased 4% in the general market panel to 84,959,000 from Jan 05 vs. Jan 06. The US Hispanic panel increased 3% from Jan 05 – Jan 06 to 7,129,000 unique visitors online during Jan 06. The chart illustrates that pertaining to the education category; US Hispanics are growing in unique visitors at almost the same rate as the overall online community.

In comparing education sites visited among US Hispanics and general market, the first obvious difference is that each set has their own top 5, defined with URL extension, .edu.

Regardless of ethnicity, college students surpass adults overall in key online activities:

Not surprisingly, college students surpass adults online in research/education, 39% versus 17%, respectively. Perhaps students are required to e-mail their assignments as opposed to turning in the hard copy in class, as 73% of college students use e-mail versus 51% of adults online.

Education is one of the main ways to ‘get ahead’ in life. This may be particularly appealing to the 40% of Hispanics in 2002 that were foreign born with perhaps less resources available to them and fluency of the English language then subsequent generations. (Source, foreign born %: U.S. Census)

57% - The percentage of Hispanics 25 and over who had at least a high school education in 2003, up from 53 percent a decade earlier.

11% - The percentage of the Hispanic population 25 and over with a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2003, up from 9 percent a decade earlier. Native residents of Hispanic origin had much higher high-school completion rates (74 percent) and college completion rates (14 percent) in 2003 than their foreign-born counterparts (45 percent and 10 percent, respectively).

2.6 million - The number of Hispanics 18 and over [in 2003] who have at least a bachelor’s degree. This is more than double the number in 1990 (1.1 million). ( Source, U.S. Census)

23% - The percentage of Hispanic college graduates age 50+, versus 38.4% in the general population. (Source, TheMediaAudit Report, 2/24/06)

50% - More than 50% of Hispanic graduates read a newspaper on an average weekday

41.7% - The percent of Hispanic college graduates have an income of $75k+ versus 42.8% of the general population. (Source, TheMediaAudit Report, 2/24/06)

24.1% - The percent of Hispanic college graduates have an income of $100k+ versus 26.7% of the general population. (Source, TheMediaAudit Report, 2/24/06)

In summary, US Hispanics are growing on par with the general market by unique visitor metric, year over year from Jan. 2005 to Jan. 2006. Along with the general market, Hispanics visit ‘.edu’ web sites directly, although the institutions are ranked differently by traffic. Overall, online college students are a premium audience since they surpass adults online in e-mail, IM, and other activities. Over 1 in 10 Hispanics age 25 and over (11%) have at least a bachelor’s degree. 25% of Terra’s overall audience has a bachelor’s degree or higher. (Source: Terra Selecto Online Panel, n=40,323, Feb 06) These statistics are evidence of education being highly valued among Hispanics.

Terra Networks wishes all students and graduates a bright future.

To learn more about how you can reach Terra.com's quality audience with your marketing message, call us at 212-354-2700. Visit http://www.terra.com/advertise/ and http://www.terra.com/terraenlaprensa/.

By Natasha Funk Published February 28, 2006. If you missed past issues of Terra’s Smart Marketer Series and would like to obtain them, please send an email to: smartmarketer@terra.com.