More Latinos are going to college than ever, but only about half of them earn a bachelor’s degree.

Angelica Sanjuan Bermudez, a junior at the University of Texas at Dallas, says she understands why it’s a challenge for many students. She struggled at first.

The mountain of schoolwork was overwhelming. So on some days, she gave in to her newfound freedom to have lunch with friends or catch an event on campus rather than facing assignments that were stressing her out. Of course, that meant the biomedical engineering major soon fell behind and need to scramble to catch up. READ MORE AT DALLAS MORNING NEWS

American Girl's 2018 girl of the year is Luciana Vega, an 11-year-old "aspiring astronaut who dreams of being the first person to go to Mars," the wildly popular doll makers said in a statement unveiling the new character.

"Luciana is our first character that's really immersed in STEM," Rebecca Dekuiper, a designer at American Girl, said in a video about the making of Luciana. "We've had STEM products before, but we really wanted to do a whole character to show girls that STEM is cool." READ MORE AT YAHOO NEWS

The dearth of minority CPAs has been a source of concern within the accounting profession for many decades (see Bert N. Mitchell, “The Black Minority in the CPA Profession,” Journal of Accountancy, vol. 128, no. 4, pp. 31–48, 1969, and “The Status of the Black CPA: An Update,” Journal of Accountancy, vol. 141, no. 5, pp. 52–58, 1976). Even though the CPA certificate bestows professional prestige and economic opportunities upon its holders, the number of minority accountants who have achieved CPA status has remained abysmally low. READ MORE AT THE CPA JOURNAL

When the Great Recession began 10 years ago this month, experts say Latino workers in Arizona were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Heavily represented in construction and agriculture, two industries that were particularly hard hit, and generally younger than the overall state population, unemployment among Hispanics in Arizona soared from 4.8 percent in 2007 to 13.8 percent in 2012, when it topped out. It had fallen back to 5.8 percent as of 2016.

Part of that recovery, analysts say, was the result of the situation that caused the jobless rate to soar in the first place: Locked out of jobs they were used to, an increasing number of Latinos decided to start their own businesses. READ MORE AT ARIZONA DAILY SUN

As 2017 comes to a close, Americans have big hopes for the new year. Matt Ferguson, CEO of job site CareerBuilder, says workers can expect positive job growth in 2018 and beyond.

"We expect the unemployment rate to remain in the low 4 percent range and may even drop into the high 3 percent range in 2018," he told CNBC.

But not every industry is going to have the same positive gowth in the new year. Check out the best and worst industries and jobs for 2018. READ MORE AT CNBC

Negotiating a new offer may feel uncomfortable, but a little discomfort is worth it. This is your best chance to increase your salary and improve the conditions of your new job. Once you have accepted a job, you lose your leveraging power.

The best negotiators know what they want and are armed with information about what is negotiable and to what degree. Before you have your first interview, you should begin thinking about what conditions are most important to you and what you want from your new job. READ MORE AT PAYSCALE

At the end of the year, a lot of us use some of the holiday down time to evaluate where we are in our careers and how much we want to stay with our current jobs or change to something different in the upcoming year. It is a healthy thing to do even if you end up doing nothing different and staying with whatever role or company you are with now.

There is a lot of great advice out there about job hunting, interviewing, and even career planning. In aggregate, though, sometimes it can feel a little overwhelming.

If you end up among the many who decide to begin a job search in 2018 in pursuit of your next big thing, here are two important but simple things you should make sure you do. READ MORE AT INC.

It was a cultural moment in a year of swift changes. Much like the #MeToo movement brought attention to the sexual harassment of women, “Despacito” and later “Mi Gente” brought into clear view Latino artists' rising influence in the American and music scene.

With staggering numbers, both the Spanglish “Despacito” by Puerto Rican artists Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, and “Mi Gente” by Colombian-born J Balvin and French artist Willy Williams in full-on español, hit #1 on Spotify’s most streamed songs worldwide. READ MORE AT NBCNEWS

Whether you hit a career slump this year or, worse yet, got demoted, there's no reason to think you can't quickly turn things around. With a new year right around the corner, now's the perfect time to map out a strategy for revitalizing your career. Here are six solutions that'll help you get back on track.

1. Take initiative
If your career hasn't been progressing the way you would've liked, perhaps it's because you've allowed yourself to grow complacent in your role and responsibilities. READ MORE AT MADISON.COM

The year has been a deluge of headlines, and there were probably hundreds, if not thousands, of stories from the hemisphere that flew under the radar. From cyborgs in Brazil to water shortages in Bolivia, we take a look at some of the stories we read in the last 12 months that we’re still thinking about at the end of the year—and ones we expect to be hearing more about in 2018. READ MORE AT ASCOA

If you go by the number of people who check the “Hispanic” box in US Census Bureau forms, people of Latin American descent make up 18% of the population. But, among the adult population, there are another 5 million, who don’t consider themselves Hispanic but descend from Latin America, according estimates from Pew Research Center.

Among the estimated 42.7 million U.S. adults with Hispanic ancestry in 2015, 89%, or about 37.8 million, thought of themselves as Hispanic or Latino, but the rest did not, according to Pew surveys. By the fourth generation, half those with Hispanic background no longer consider themselves part of the group. READ MORE AT QUARTZ

It is almost the end of 2017 and as usual, many of us will begin to reflect and set resolutions for 2018. Some of these might look like: eat healthier, travel to Japan, learn a new language, clear the PTPTN debt, etc.

It’s easy to come up with a list of dreams and goals, but executing them is often the hardest part. When it comes to setting your financial resolutions, you first need to have a very strong grasp of what they are. READ MORE AT THE STAR ONLINE

Here’s some workplace news to brighten your holidays: According to a recent Indeed.com survey, 61% of employers plan to hire more people in 2018 than in 2017 and 40% are worried about finding enough good people to fill those openings.

It’s not just tech and health care firms who are poised to hire. Indeed.com says a diverse group of industries plan to be on the hunt, with architecture, engineering, IT, telecom and professional service firms at the top of the list. READ MORE AT FORBES

For many consumers, grocery shopping and meal preparation isn’t very exciting. But the research from Acosta and Univision paints a different picture for Hispanic shoppers, who often approach buying groceries as an enjoyable activity for couples and families rather than a solitary chore. Food shopping and meal preparation provide the chance to explore new ingredients and make new recipes.

This sentiment is a boon for grocers, especially with the increase of the Hispanic population — currently listed at 54 million, or 17% of the population, per Census data. READ MORE AT FOOD DIVE

The word diversity and its close relatives, inclusion and equality, are positive by most objective standards and dictionaries.

Yet when they fall on certain ears, these words can raise hackles and bring out hives. And it’s interesting to ask, why is that? Why wouldn’t someone subscribe to the great Australian maxim of a fair go for all? How can they see the words diversity and inclusion then register something negative lurking in their semantics? READ MORE AT THE FIFTH ESTATE

Latino students have made progress closing the college graduation gap between themselves and their white peers, but results vary widely by institution, a new study shows.

The college graduation gap between Latinos and whites is 10 percentage points on average, according to A Look at Latino Student Success, a new report from the Education Trust.

Still, as more Latinos have enrolled in college, more are graduating, which has meant that the gap with their white peers narrowed by 2.7 percentage points between 2002 and 2015. On average, 53.6 percent of Latinos earn a bachelor’s degree within in six years, compared with 63.3 percent of whites. READ MORE AT THE HECHINGER REPORT

As the world becomes more competitive each day, it has become imperative to understand one’s strengths and weaknesses at an early stage. Be it in business, technology, hospitality, healthcare, you name it—interacting with the industry players on a regular basis has become a necessity.

Here’s six networking tips for MBA students:

1. Network with a plan

Networking is a very broad concept, and it often leads to being delusional. You can talk to 100 people and not get anything out of it, or you can talk to five people and land a great job or a mentor.

 READ MORE AT BUSINESSBECAUSE

Hispanics in the U.S. have quickly become one of the fastest growing minorities in the U.S. This is no surprise. However, many companies seem to be marketing a general Hispanic audience and not dissecting into smaller categories, such as third generation Hispanics.

Hispanics in the U.S. have quickly become one of the fastest growing minorities in the U.S. This is no surprise. However, many companies seem to be marketing a general Hispanic audience and not dissecting into smaller categories, such as third generation Hispanics. READ MORE AT ABASTO

At Downey Nissan in Downey, Calif., two women — a Hispanic marketing director and a Nepalese general sales manager — have teamed up to lead a sales surge to Hispanic consumers.

Through August, Downey Nissan sold 1,899 new vehicles to Hispanic customers. That was almost double the 970 new vehicles in the year-earlier period. Through November, the store is the Nissan brand's leader in selling to Hispanic customers.

Nationwide, Hispanics have become a critical demographic in light-vehicle sales. At Honda, for example, "All of our sales growth over the last year has been [from sales to] Hispanics," says Vicki Poponi, vice president of automotive marketing operations for American Honda. Through November, Honda brand U.S. sales rose 1.4 percent, against an industrywide decline of 1.4 percent. READ MORE AT AUTOMOTIVE NEWS

The unemployment rate among Latino and Hispanic Americans fell to 4.7 percent in November, the lowest level on records since 1973.

That figure comes with an asterisk, though: Like other categories of the U.S. population, a smaller proportion of Latinos either have a job or are looking for one than before the Great Recession. Many have retired or are staying in school or caring for family members. The proportion of Latinos with jobs remains below its prerecession peak. READ MORE AT THE GAZATTE