SAN MARCOS - Federal officials notified Palomar College this week that the school will be eligible for as much as $2.5 million in grants during the next five years as a "Hispanic-serving" institution.

Palomar officials said they plan to use the money to establish a tutoring and academic resource center for struggling students. Schools designated "Hispanic-serving" get extra federal money for programs that support underprepared students and those likely to drop out of college.

The two-year community college has sought designation as a Hispanic-serving institution for many years, but it had previously fallen short of the requirement that Hispanic students take 25 percent of the academic classes at the school.

"We've been increasing steadily over the years, and we just got above 25 percent," said Michelle Barton, director of institutional research for Palomar.

The ratio was 23.56 percent in fall 2005, and then climbed to 24.36 percent in fall 2006, Barton said. School officials then began interviewing students this winter who seemed likely to be Hispanic, but who had not specified their ethnicity on their Palomar application.

"Sometimes students are confused, or just reluctant to say that they are Hispanic," said Barton.

Bob Deegan, president of the college, said that the tutoring center Palomar plans to create with the money is exactly what federal officials have in mind.

"Students who come in lacking basic skills often don't persist as students," said Deegan. "We want to help them stay in school by creating a place they can get tutoring, counseling about transferring to universities and information about financial aid."

Deegan stressed that the tutoring center, which he called a "student support center," would be open to students from all ethnic backgrounds. He explained that money received via the Hispanic-serving designation can be used for programs serving the entire student body, not just Hispanics.

A pilot version of the tutoring center is slated to open at Palomar's Escondido satellite campus this fall, with a larger center planned for the main campus in San Marcos a year or two later, said Berta Cuaron, vice president of instruction.

"We have some space in Escondido, so we'll start there," said Cuaron. "When we get through experimenting in Escondido, we'll carve a space out for this on the main campus and fully institutionalize it so that it continues running after the grant ends."

Palomar recently received $513,000 in state money to establish a tutoring center, but that grant does not include money to sustain the center beyond the first year, said Cuaron. So the timing of the Hispanic-serving designation could not be better, she said.

"We're kind of going outside our typical box with this," said Cuaron. "But we really want to give students a place where they feel comfortable, and this will benefit many, many students."

Cuaron estimated that the pilot tutoring center will feature two professors and five to 10 support staffers. She said the San Marcos version would probably be larger when it opens in a few years.

Beyond having enough Hispanic students, Palomar had to meet other criteria to receive the Hispanic-serving designation, said Barton. The school had to demonstrate that it receives less money per pupil than the national median and that more of its students qualify for financial aid than the national median, she said.

"We got our letter from the federal government on April 9 saying that we qualify," said Barton. "It's pretty exciting, because we've been tracking this for many years."

Cal State San Marcos has stepped up its efforts to be designated an Hispanic-serving institution in recent years, but the most recent data indicate that only 21.1 percent of students at the university are Hispanic.

Palomar joins Southwestern College in Chula Vista and Mesa College in San Diego as the only Hispanic-serving institutions of the eight community colleges in the county.

- Contact staff writer David Garrick at (760) 761-4410 or dgarrick@nctimes.com.