This story comes to us from NBC Latino.

If there is any doubt that American companies and manufacturers need educated and trained Latino employees and managers, consider this: Latinos will account for 75 percent of the labor growth between 2012 and 2020.

How can companies find Latinos who have the expertise - or the promise - to fill these jobs? Excelencia in Education had an idea -compile a report of the top 25 post-secondary institutions who are graduating Latinos in different degrees - certificate, associate, bachelor, master’s degree and doctorate. The report, “Finding Your Workforce,” compiled the community colleges, for profit institutions and universities who are producing close to 30 percent of all the Latino post-secondary graduates in the U.S.

“Business leaders and employers of all kinds should know which institutions lead the country in the number of Latino graduates produced each year,” said Sarita Brown, Excelencia in Education’s President.

Hispanics earned 10 percent of post-secondary degrees and certificates awarded in 2009-2010. That year, Latinos received 48 percent of the certificate or associate degrees, 9 percent of the bachelor degrees, 6 percent of the master’s and the 1st professional degrees, and 4 percent of the doctorates.

The top institutions awarding these degrees to Latinos were: United Education Institute-Huntington Park in California for a certificate of less than one year, Instituto de Banco y Comercio in Puerto Rico for a certificate of less than two years, Miami Dade College for an associate Degree, Florida International University for the most bachelor and master’s degrees that year, the Inter American University of Puerto Rico-School of Law for a 1st professional degree, and the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras for a doctoral degree.

Some institutions that stood out were Florida International University, one of the top-ranked in Latino degrees in bachelor, master’s, 1st professional and doctoral; the for-profit University of Phoenix was top-ranked at the associate, bachelor and master’s level; the University of Texas at El Paso was top-ranked for Latino bachelor and master’s degrees and South Texas College was top-ranked certificate-less than one year.

Knowing what institutions are succeeding in graduating Latinos is more critical than ever, says Emily Stover DeRocco, president of the Manufacturing Institute. “82 percent of manufacturers reported serious shortages in qualified employees,” says Stover DeRocco, which translates to approximately 600,000 jobs going unfilled. “These are middle-class jobs which pay well,” she adds, and more and more firms are looking for Latino graduates.

Some companies, says Stover DeRocco, have found the best pathway is to sponsor and mentor promising Latinos who are working and at the same time earning their degrees. Considering the large number of Latino students who use for-profit or community colleges, this makes sense, she adds.

Apart from the high numbers of Latinos who attend for-profit or community colleges, the report also found nearly all of the top 25 schools at bachelor degree level are public colleges and universities.

Though Latinos have the highest labor force participation rate of any other group - 68 percent - “the participation rate is generally in lower paying jobs,” said Deborah Santiago, the report’s lead writer and Excelencia in Education’s Vice President of Policy and Research.

Santiago and Brown said it is crucial to close the Latino educational attainment gap and to foster higher-paying jobs for the nation’s Hispanics. One way to do it is to make sure American companies can find qualified Latinos.

“We had recruiters are employers say they did not know where the graduating Latinos were,” says Santiago, “so here they are.”

Sandra Lilley is a producer at NBC News

All statements and opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual contributors, and not of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or NBC News.