January 3, 2010

Whither the Dream

WHITHER THE DREAM NO federal law prohibits illegal immigrants from attending college in the United States, or requires them to disclose their situation. Most colleges dont even check immigration status when students apply for financial aid only 31 percent, according to a survey last year by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. Still, illegal students face numerous barriers to higher education. About 65,000 graduated from American high schools last year, but only 5 percent went on to college, according to Roberto G. Gonzales, a professor at the University of Washington and author of a College Board report last year on the plight of minors brought in illegally by their parents and raised here. Many fear that applying to college will expose them and their families to deportation. But, too, higher education is expensive, and far less aid is available. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for federal financial aid, and only 10 states extend cheaper in-state tuition rates to illegal students who attended their high schools. The issue is emotional and politically volatile. South Carolina has recently barred such students from enrolling in any of its state colleges and universities; in spring Alabama will bar them from community colleges, and North Carolina has yo-yoed on the issue. Proposed legislation to grant legal status to minors has been debated in Congress for eight years. A new bill, the so-called Dream Act, was introduced last year to provide those who entered the country under age 16 with a conditional path to citizenship in exchange for two years of college or military service. And on Dec. 15, Representative Luis V. Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat, introduced a comprehensive immigration bill that folds in some of the Dream Act. But even advocates acknowledge that with unemployment so high among citizens and health care preoccupying Congress, such legislation might have to wait for a more auspicious moment. Another Democrat, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, is working on his own immigration overhaul, expected to be introduced in the spring.