Given the surging growth in the U.S. Latino population in recent years, nowhere have those increases been occurring faster than in the southeast. North Carolina, Arkansas and Georgia, for example, have seen population increases between 300 and 400 percent since the early 1990s. Naturally, Latino community leaders and state officials have been eager to grow Latino enrollment in higher education--a task complicated by the reality that Latinos are struggling with a high public school dropout rate, estimated at 47 percent in North Carolina, and attend college at lower percentages than Whites and Blacks. In North Carolina, the task to increase and support Latino college enrollment is one shared by a host of institutions and agencies, including historically Black colleges and universities. Among the 16 public colleges in the state, historically Black Fayetteville State University (FSU) had the highest share of Latino students, 4 percent, during the 2003-2004 academic year, according to state officials. This year's numbers have Latino enrollment at 4.1 percent. There's an expectation that HBCUs, such as FSU, will play a role as great as that of the majority White colleges and universities in facilitating Latino college enrollment in North Carolina colleges and universities, according to state officials.