New bill delivers benefits

EDITOR's NOTE: This article originally published in The Advocate on Sept. 14, 2011. To view original post, visit AccentAdvocate.com.

Signs and shirts inside the Student Services Center emphasize the accessibility of college with a simple slogan: "I can afford college."

But for roughly 42,000 of California students, college is unaffordable because they are undocumented citizens.

"Everyone should have the opportunity to be a student and go to school," Contra Costa College nursing major Karla Palma said.

"Some have the opportunity and don't go. Others want to and can't," the 23-year-old UC Berkeley transfer said. "There should be a Dream Act to give them that opportunity to become what they want to be."

Assemblyman Gilbert Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) wrote two bills, both approved by the Legislature, to provide undocumented students the access to affordable college classes, exempting them from nonresident tuition.

Assembly bills 130 and 131, known together as the California Dream Act, allow undocumented students who migrated with their parents to collect scholarships and financial aid through the institution.

The children of undocumented immigrants brought to this country and raised in communities up and down the state, grew up identifying as California residents. But because they are not on record as citizens, they are not allowed the same access to affordable education.

"If you were brought up here, your friends are here, your work is here, your life is here," La Raza studies professor Agustin Palacios said. "It is unfair to punish them for a choice they did not make."

Conrado Terrazas, Cedillo's communication director, said, "There are thousands of students who do hard work to go to college. They are qualified but can't go because of the high cost of college."

Undocumented residents, however, must have gone to a high school in the state for at least three years and acquired their diploma or its equivalent, as defined by AB540.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB130 on July 25 and AB131 is waiting for his signature by Oct. 9.

"Passing these bills is an advance of civil rights in California," CCC Admissions and Records Director Michael Aldaco.

The state's Dream Act differs from its national counterpart of the same name, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, which was introduced in 2001, and again this May.

The federal act provides a pathway to national citizenship through education or military service. The state bills only address the cost of education.

AB540, the California Immigrant Higher Education Act, signed in October 2001, allows for undocumented students who attended high school in the state for at least three years and graduated with a diploma or its equivalent.

Students need AB540 eligibility to take advantage of AB130 and 131.

"AB540 waives non- resident tuition. It sets the price," Aldaco said. "AB130 allows these students to receive privately raised scholarships. AB131 opens the door to state financial aid."

Terrazas said undocumented students make up less than 1 percent of students at each of three higher education institutions in the state, but 30 percent of students eligible for AB540.

Undocumented students previously could not receive any funds passed through institutions, such as the Financial Aid Office.

Since the passing of AB130, all AB540 eligible students can apply for scholarships on Jan. 1, 2012.

AB131 proposes to take this notion a step further by allowing the opportunity for AB540 students to receive public financial aid.

The second half of the Dream Act would allow undocumented students to apply for the Board of Governor's fee waiver and they could apply for competitive aid, like Cal Grants, after all California residents received their aid.

"The Board of Governor's fee waiver is the biggest program," CCC financial aid assistant Lizette Ponthier said.

"For our population, it could have a potential impact, specifically here," she said. "They are already our students performing academically."