Thread: NCSU official wants better access for Hispanics

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Thursday, June 22, 2006
NCSU official wants better access for Hispanics
Many at conference support changing law banning immigrants from discount tuition rate

By Laura Giovanelli
JOURNAL REPORTER


CHAPEL HILL

A call from the top academic leader at N.C. State University to reform state law banning immigrants from attending public colleges at the same rate as their American-born peers drew a round of applause at a conference on higher education and Hispanics yesterday.

"And I think we ought to commit everything to getting this law changed," added Larry Nielsen, N.C. State's provost and executive vice chancellor.

While the immigration debate continues from the U.S. capital to corner barbershops, North Carolina's public colleges are steeling for a fight to recruit foreign-born and second-generation immigrant students who may not even be considering higher education. Other states with larger and more entrenched immigrant populations, such as California and New York, have already had to deal with it. At least nine states have passed laws allowing some foreign-born students to go to college at the lower, in-state rates, said Sarita Brown, the president of Excelencia in Education, a nonprofit Hispanic-advocacy group.

That's a political hot potato in North Carolina. Yesterday, Nielsen challenged the faculty assembly of the University of North Carolina with making the law an issue, but any push from the UNC system is likely to face opposition.

Last year, a bill that would change the tuition rules took a lashing and drew national attention, and 11 of the 36 co-sponsors eventually asked to have their names removed from it. The bill went nowhere, but it would have let children of illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition if they graduate from a North Carolina high school after attending school here for four years. The student would also have to apply for legal immigration status.

Any movement on immigration legislation with national legislators now seems dead this year. U.S. House Republicans decided yesterday to hold hearings on the legislation, rather than compromise with the Senate's version, Bloomberg news service reported.

The Senate's proposal would have created a new guest-worker program, giving most of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants a way to pursue U.S. citizenship, plus it would repeal federal legislation that requires states to offer in-state tuition rates to all students if they choose to offer it to immigrants.

Some of the Hispanic advocates, University of North Carolina and community-college administrators, faculty and students gathered in Chapel Hill seemed most frustrated by the lack of choices they can offer students who can't prove they are citizens.

Whitney Woodyard, an outreach coordinator for the N.C. Society of Hispanic Professionals, said that the Hispanic students she talks to often don't see the point in making the sacrifice to go to college when they know they can't be legally employed after they graduate.

"It's mostly, 'I'm undocumented, how can I pay?' and 'I'm undocumented, and what can I do after I go to school?'" she said. "They finish a law program, and they can't even take the bar because they don't have a Social Security number. I get this question all the time: 'What can I do?'"

But speakers and those who attended yesterday's conference say they have to act now, figuring out the best ways to lure more Hispanics of any immigration status to college, and then keep them there until they graduate. Illegal immigrants make up about an eighth of the Hispanic population between 18 and 24, said Andrew Behnke, a demographer and professor of family and consumer sciences at N.C. State. The state's entire illegal Hispanic immigrant population is estimated at 600,000, he said.

Cost and language and cultural barriers are among the reasons more Hispanics aren't going to college, experts said yesterday.

Hispanics in North Carolina, who are by far mostly Mexican, made up just 2 percent of total enrollment in the 16-college system last year and 2.4 percent at all the state's colleges, public and private, four-year and two-year. By 2017, more than 35,000 Hispanics are expected to graduate from North Carolina's public high schools.

But experts yesterday said that these students, even if they are legal U.S. citizens, tend to come from families who don't know the pre-college ropes of forms, applications and financial aid.

At Appalachian State University, recruiting Hispanics means holding all-Spanish conferences for migrant or ESL students on campus, said Augusto Pena, an assistant director of admissions. It also means calling students at home to remind them to fill out their federal financial-aid form, or chatting in Spanish with their parents, aunts and uncles, but not assuming that the students themselves are bilingual.

Fayetteville State University, which has the highest percentage of Hispanic students among the UNC campuses, advertises with billboards and a Web site that can be translated into Spanish, French, German, Italian and Portuguese.

Hispanics, the country's large-st minority, are the most undereducated and the youngest ethnic group, Brown said.

Those who do attend college are first-generation college students who are likely to commute to schools close to their home. They also typically attend school part-time, making it less likely that they will graduate, Brown said. They also get the least financial aid, she said.

• Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com

This is no big surprise. College campuses and especially professors are the biggest liberals around.

"It's mostly, 'I'm undocumented, how can I pay?' and 'I'm undocumented, and what can I do after I go to school?'" she said. "They finish a law program, and they can't even take the bar because they don't have a Social Security number. I get this question all the time: 'What can I do?'"

You can go back to where you came from. If you have gone through the law program you really should know by now that you are illegal.

The state's entire illegal Hispanic immigrant population is estimated at 600,000, he said.

You can't have that many! You know there are only 12 million in the USA, so that's about about 240,000 per state. We all know California has a LOT, and this would throw the whole thing off. With those kinda numbers, there would be over 30 million here. Whew......I'm confused.

There are definitely more than 12 million, a lot more.