Thread: Corporations Ease off on Scholarships for illegals

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Business/156270/


Corporations ease off giving scholarships to illegal immigrants
BY MIRIAM JORDAN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Earlier this year, Hector Vega learned from the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation that he was one of 250 winners of a merit scholarship that had drawn applications from 50, 000 high-school seniors across the country.

“I was so excited,” recalled the straight-A student from San Jose, Calif., who had been scrambling to raise funds for college.

But his joy was tempered Feb. 14, when he received an e-mail message from the foundation. It said “they couldn’t give me any money because of my immigration status,” said Vega, an illegal immigrant who is the covaledictorian of the senior class at James Lick High School.

U. S. companies and their affiliated foundations are facing a new challenge: whether to award scholarships to students who are in the U. S. illegally. Coke’s foundation has been rewarding students who display a strong commitment to community service for 18 years, but this was the first year it confronted the hot-button issue of illegal immigration.

“Everyone is wrestling with this,” said Mark Davis, the foundation’s president. The group eventually decided to give Vega the scholarship after he proved he is pursuing legal residency.

Currently, most U. S. corporations award scholarships only to students who can prove they are legal residents, typically by filling in the boxes provided for a Social Security number. But amid the swelling ranks of illegal-immigrant students, the question of whether to reward those among them with stellar academic records has increasingly come to the fore.

“The tension is between wanting to do the right thing by the kids and making sure that they remain within the letter and spirit of the law,” said Colleen Quint, president of the National Association of Scholarship Providers, a nonprofit group whose members include companies like Coke. The topic of illegal-immigrant students will be on the association’s agenda at its annual meeting in the fall, Quint said.

Few companies are willing to speak openly about their policy regarding scholarship applicants who are in the U. S. illegally.

“Most corporate foundations simply want to give scholarships to kids who deserve them,” said David Rattray, vice president of education and work-force development at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, which awards college money to students who are in the United States illegally. However, he said, “pragramatic corporate America” is coming face to face with hard-line public discourse on illegal immigration.

The Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which is supported by bigname companies like Anheuser-Busch Cos., approached donors a few years ago about offering scholarships on a limited basis to students who are illegal aliens. Only two corporate foundations stepped forward, said fund President Sara Martinez Tucker. This year, amid the immigration debate in Congress, the fund’s attorneys reviewed federal law and decided it was too risky to continue the practice. The Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which disburses about $ 25 million in scholarships annually to Hispanic students, “can’t jeopardize that for the sake” of a minority of illegal-alien students, Tucker said.

Some companies have a policy that amounts to “don’t ask, don’t tell.” For example, Microsoft Corp. simply doesn’t request proof of legal residency. “I don’t know that we are intentionally accommodating these students,” said a Microsoft spokesman. “What is relevant to us is the fact that someone is a student in good standing whose potential we can help realize.” The San Francisco affiliate of Spanish-language network Univision awards scholarships to Hispanic students who aren’t legal residents, as long as they provide an ITIN, the taxpayer identification number that foreigners use to pay U. S. taxes.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. won’t consider illegal-immigrant students for its scholarship program. But last year, its foundation stopped requiring that applicants be U. S. citizens. Instead, it requires “at least one year as a permanent legal resident” in the U. S. for its Sam Walton Community Scholarship, which is awarded to graduating seniors.

By the end of June, some 65, 000 illegal-immigrant students are expected to graduate from U. S. high schools. The majority are Hispanics who were smuggled into the United States by their parents when they were babies or toddlers. Others, such as Vega, crossed the border illegally when they were older to join family members already in America.

Unlike other graduates of U. S. high schools, illegal immigrants can’t qualify for federal grants and loans or work-study programs to finance their higher education. Ten states, including California and Texas, have tried to make college more affordable for illegal immigrants by passing legislation that allows them to pay in-state tuition. But for many of these students, even state fees are prohibitive.

Bipartisan legislation, known as the Dream Act, would enable illegal immigrants who have earned a high-school diploma and received a college acceptance to qualify for federal aid other than grants by putting them on the path to citizenship. But the future of the legislation, introduced five years ago, remains unclear. It is attached to the immigration bill that passed the Senate on Thursday. But the bill must still go to a conference committee to try to resolve differences with the House bill passed in December.

Illegal-alien students determined to further their education usually work part time to save money and try to tap into private scholarship funds. Vega, whose mother works in the kitchen of a nursing home and part time at a fast-food outlet, began to trawl the Web for scholarships last fall. He applied for several corporate ones even though they required legal residency. The biggest one was Coke’s. It requested a Social Security number. Vega, who doesn’t have one, filled in number ones on the electronic form so that he could move onto the next part of the application. “I told myself that maybe all that matters is that you earned it and deserved what you’re getting,” he said.

This sounds like another poor little illegal immigrant.

Please keep in mind, there are thousands of American children who would also like to attend college and it is just as expensive if not more so for them. Many Americans just aren't making as much, in total, as the illegals.

In Texas, however, they do get in-state tuition and any graduate of a Texas highschool gets 2 years free at a community college or technical school. Now it didn't say so, but I am sure that includes illegal aliens.

So a community college may not be Harvard - but ours is a part of the A & M system.

I just wonder where these sob sisters stand on American children and college.

Before the illegals came, a lot of young people worked in the poultry industry here to help pay for their college - even to just pay for their clothing for high school. Now the illegals have the jobs.