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College Board endorses tuition legislation
DREAM Act would allow illegal immigrants attending universities to apply for permanent resident status
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The College Board endorsed a piece of federal legislation Tuesday that would allow undocumented immigrant students who have grown up in the U.S. to apply for conditional permanent resident status and to eventually become eligible for U.S. citizenship as long as they attend college.
Recently revised by a group of bipartisan congressional legislators, the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would also allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition to their respective college or university, barring no legal trouble and a diploma from a U.S. high school.
Only recently has The College Board started to take strong public positions on legislation related to college access and success, Jennifer Topiel, executive director of communications at The College Board, said in an e-mail to The Badger Herald.
Topiel said students who would benefit from this law would still have to perform well in high school to earn admission into postsecondary schools and would thereafter have to compete for financial aid.
According to the legislation, undocumented students would be eligible for work-study and student loans, and individual states would be able to provide their own forms of scholarship without government restriction. Illegal immigrants would not, however, be eligible to receive Pell Grants or certain other forms of federal financial aid.
“In other words, the DREAM Act would simply provide undocumented students with the legal right to pursue opportunities they have already earned for themselves,” Topiel said.
The 10 states that have passed laws allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition have not seen a greater financial burden, a large influx of immigrant students or displacement of native-born students, Topiel said.
Topiel added these 10 states, which include California, Texas and New York, are home to about half of the nation’s undocumented immigrants.
Rep. Spencer Black, D-Madison, a member of the Committee on Colleges and Universities, also voiced support for the DREAMS Act.
“I think these young people deserve a chance and should not be punished for what their parents may have done in the past,” Black said.
Black said he did not have a sense of whether the bill would pass in Congress because the vote totals are still up in the air.
Black said he could not comment any further on the bill.
According to The College Board report, 1.8 million undocumented children live in the U.S. Under the DREAM Act, more than 360,000 undocumented high school graduates would have a lawful way to receive additional funding for college, and 715,000 K-12 students would be motivated through incentives to graduate secondary school and pursue a college education.
“The DREAM Act is about providing equitable educational opportunities to all students, so this issue is entirely consistent with our mission,” Topiel said, “All young people should have access to education and hope for a better future.”
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IP hash: ed09bb67
The DREAM ACT is nothing, but a perverse form of Amnesty and allowing it to happen would justify that illegally entering an Country is better then coming and staying a here legally.
The Dream Act does nothing to help the millions of POOR American children get into college, who are struggling to today to get a better education! Instead it sends a message that American deserve less, then those who have broken our laws and now must give up their seats in college to an Illegal alien.
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Well Well, seems like “Anonymous” is just another ignorant SOB who doesn’t do his/her homework. Why don’t you explore the benefits we as a country will receive if this act does pass.
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i cant believe what im reading. its sad to know that people think that way, many of these young children came to the united states with no choice. why make them pay for their parents “bad” decisions?
IP hash: 5a52e0de
If illegal immigrants are allowed to enter our colleges and pay in-state tuition, then all out-of-state tuition will have to be eliminated; otherwide, it will be considered discrimination to charge U.S. citizens out-of-state tuition. Also, this means that all students will qualify for financial aid since illegal immigrants will automatically receive it. Many state colleges are facing a serious financial crisis and U.S. citizens are being turned away. Members of our Congress must have lost their minds to try to pass the DREAM ACT which is nothing but discrimination!!
IP hash: 92440138
It is a sad story to hear about these kids not be able to join college after they graduate from high school. America is still short of highly qualified people and that is why there is a H1B programe to bring in these short fall. If some one who is objectionable to these kids should object this H1B programme too. America needs qualified people to run its high speed engine.
IP hash: be6e687c
Ms Betty Dobson,
1) International students can study in our schools as we can study abroad too. They pay out of state tuition becasue they do not contrinute to the funding of the state education system.
2) Us student from other states can pay in - state tuition if they live for a umber fo years in this state. Actually, some do move a year before get into the system for their advantage.
3) The reasoning behind state in tutition is that when somebody is resident of one state is alredy funding the state education system via taxes (paycheck, housing, sales taxes, etc, etc) . This is beyonf any rethoric about who has visa or not, this is just plain mathematics, who pays, who gets it?
3) Undocumented inmigrant students and their families live in the state and likely will remain in the same state, so this families apply for state in tuition for the same principles than those previusly commented.
4) To have or not the right to be in this country is really in this moment a conjunture due the broken immigraiton system, yet that does not affect to the principle of qualifiying.
5) Finally, DREAM ACT enables another path for citizeenship: enrolling to the army. This is in fact nothing new, since Iraq war, hundreds or thouasands of immigrants has been recruited from inside and outside USA to fight in IRAQ under the promise of papers if the come back alive. This is the story that people do not want to talk about it, immigrnats fighting and diying for a country that think about them like tghey are less than humans, pure delinquents thats the matter if they are women, kids or workers.
I hope this could satisfy your concerns about this act.
alex