Young immigrants may find college elusive

CHRISTINE ARMARIO

AP Edu­ca­tion Writer

MIAMI — Araceli Cortes had made up her mind: After being brought to the U.S. as a child, grad­u­at­ing from high school and attend­ing some col­lege in Cal­i­for­nia, she was going to return to Mex­ico to pur­sue her dream of becom­ing a doctor.

She quit her job, bought an air­line ticket and reserved a seat to take a med­ical school entrance exam.

Then, a week before her depar­ture, Pres­i­dent Barack Obama announced that young ille­gal immi­grants like Cortes would be given the chance to remain in the United States and obtain a work visa. Cortes can­celed her ticket and decided to stay.

This week, she and thou­sands of other immi­grants began the appli­ca­tion process. But she and many other stu­dent immi­grants could face some tough obstacles.

“It’s not giv­ing me much,” Cortes, 20, said. “It’s just a two-year permit.”

Obama was clear in announc­ing the order: This was not a path to cit­i­zen­ship, but rather an oppor­tu­nity to avoid depor­ta­tion and work.

For the stu­dents who are ille­gal immi­grants and have grad­u­ated from col­lege, the new pol­icy means they will have the oppor­tu­nity to work in their field of study, some­thing they could only do as inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors or unpaid interns before.

For younger immi­grants like Cortes — as many as 65,000 of whom are esti­mated to grad­u­ate from high school each year — some bar­ri­ers to earn­ing a col­lege degree will be removed. The main hur­dle, how­ever, will remain cost. Fed­eral loans and grants, the largest source of aid for col­lege stu­dents, require stu­dents to have a green card or U.S. citizenship.

“There’s still going to be a chal­lenge for these stu­dents to pur­sue higher edu­ca­tion,” said Deb­o­rah San­ti­ago, co-founder and vice pres­i­dent for pol­icy and research of Exce­len­cia in Edu­ca­tion. “I don’t think the num­bers are going to be high.”

Chil­dren who are ille­gal immi­grants have been guar­an­teed the right to a K-12 edu­ca­tion since the 1982 Plyler v. Doe Supreme Court decision.

A grow­ing num­ber of those stu­dents are now enter­ing ado­les­cence and early adult­hood. They speak Eng­lish, are part of after-school clubs and sports, and have the same aspi­ra­tions to attend col­lege as their peers. Yet around the age of 16, they stop hav­ing the same oppor­tu­ni­ties. When most teens get a driver’s license, a first job and start think­ing about col­lege, ille­gal immi­grant stu­dents start to become aware of their status.

“They stay stuck while their friends are mov­ing for­ward,” said Roberto Gon­za­les, a soci­ol­o­gist at the Uni­ver­sity of Chicago. “And that has tremen­dous impli­ca­tions on their own abil­ity to achieve any upward mobil­ity, on issues of self-esteem and on emo­tional and men­tal well-being.”

The Plyler v. Doe rul­ing did not address higher edu­ca­tion. Rather, indi­vid­ual states and col­leges have set their own poli­cies on whether to allow ille­gal immi­grants to attend.

Among ille­gal immi­grants who are high school grad­u­ates between the ages of 18 to 24, 49 per­cent are in or have attended some col­lege, com­pared with 76 per­cent of legal immi­grants and 71 per­cent of U.S.-born res­i­dents, accord­ing to a Pew His­panic Cen­ter study of 2008 cen­sus data.

Jane Slater, who teaches Eng­lish as a sec­ond lan­guage at a high school in Red­wood City, Calif., said fewer than half of the stu­dents who are ille­gal immi­grants at her school go to college.

“There’s that sort of hope­less feel­ing of ‘Why go?’” she said.

The price of tuition and fees increased 439 per­cent between 1982 and 2007, while the median fam­ily income rose 147 per­cent, accord­ing to the National Cen­ter for Pub­lic Pol­icy and Higher Edu­ca­tion. Par­ent and stu­dent loans, grants and schol­ar­ships help the aver­age stu­dent pay about 55 per­cent of the cost, accord­ing to a report by Sal­lie Mae, the largest pri­vate lender to students.

Stu­dents with no legal sta­tus in the U.S. have access to just a slice of those resources. Selected pri­vate schol­ar­ships are often very com­pet­i­tive because of the lim­ited num­ber avail­able. In a few states, they also qual­ify for state aid. But in most, they end up hav­ing to pay sig­nif­i­cantly higher tuition. Only 12 states allow ille­gal immi­grants to pay in-state rates.

The major­ity of those who do enroll attend com­mu­nity col­leges but often can afford only one or two classes a semes­ter, or may have to take breaks in order to work full time. That means it takes sig­nif­i­cantly longer for them to graduate.

Katharine Gin, co-founder and exec­u­tive direc­tor for the Edu­ca­tion for Fair Con­sid­er­a­tion, is opti­mistic more schol­ar­ships from cor­po­ra­tions and other fun­ders will become available.

“They were moved by their sto­ries. They felt like they deserved things but said, ‘How can I jus­tify putting money to these stu­dents when they can­not work in the end?’” Gin said. “I think that will change.”

Cortes took AP classes in high school and was accepted to every Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia school she applied to. And while Cal­i­for­nia is one of the states that allow ille­gal immi­grants to pay in-state tuition, she said it was still too expen­sive. A pri­vate school offered her a $14,000 schol­ar­ship, but that would have cov­ered only half the annual costs.

She decided to go to com­mu­nity col­lege instead and found a full-time job as a cashier at a car wash to help pay. Like at many com­mu­nity col­leges, the classes she needs to enroll in to study med­i­cine — biol­ogy, chem­istry — fill up quickly and to get in, she needs a higher credit stand­ing. That means tak­ing classes in other sub­jects, essen­tially pay­ing for courses that will have lit­tle to do with her med­ical degree.

Frus­trated, she started look­ing for other options. Her father, who lives in Mex­ico, helped her fill out the paper­work to apply for a med­ical school there, but because she can­celed her plane ticket, she lost her seat for the exam and won’t be able to take it again.

Cortes has read through dozens of news arti­cles online and recorded Obama’s speech on the White House lawn, watch­ing it repeat­edly and try­ing to fig­ure out what to do.

“He was very spe­cific in say­ing, Don’t think the wrong way about this,” she said. “This is noth­ing for res­i­dency or citizenship.”

Cortes went to the Mex­i­can Con­sulate, which put her in touch with an orga­ni­za­tion, Dream in Mex­ico, that helps stu­dents find edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties in Mex­ico. She applied to El Tec­no­logico de Mon­ter­rey and is wait­ing for a reply.

If she gets accepted and is given a schol­ar­ship to cover her fees, she’s lean­ing toward going, even though she applied to stay in this country.

Cortes fig­ures she’ll save time, money and could still end up prac­tic­ing med­i­cine one day in the United States.

“As much as I want to stay here and be with my fam­ily, I have to think of the future,” she said. “I have to think what’s best for me.”

Posted by AP News on Aug 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.