New fund pays tuition for undocumented students



  • Graham says he hopes immigration reform will open up federal aid to undocumented students. | AP Photo

CloseBy MAGGIE SEVERNS and HADAS GOLD | 2/4/14 5:03 PM EST Updated: 2/4/14 5:39 PM EST

Former Washington Post CEO Don Graham unveiled a new $25 million college scholarship fund for undocumented youth Tuesday, saying that helping to make college affordable is a step in the right direction while Congress weighs comprehensive immigration reform.


“I’m not wise enough to know exactly what the country should do on the larger questions of immigration,” Graham said in an interview. “This, we can do.”


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The fund, called TheDream.US, will award 1,000 full-tuition scholarships in the next academic year to students living in the U.S. as temporary residents under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an Obama administration program.

(Also on POLITICO: McConnell: Immigration 'irresolvable' in 2014)


The scholarships will only go so far: The Migration Policy Institute estimates 240,000 college students in the U.S. are either currently here legally via deferred action or eligible for the program.


Graham, Democratic National Committee Finance Chairman Henry Muñoz, former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Inter-American Development Bank are among the scholarship fund’s financiers.


Several big-name Republicans have endorsed the initiative, including Jeb Bush, Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist.


“I have yet to speak to one Republican who has said, ‘No, I’m not interested,’” Gutierrez said during the scholarships’ unveiling at the Newseum, adding that he’s “heartened” by the fact that it’s a bipartisan program. “I’m so glad we’re on the right side of this.”


(Also on POLITICO: Schumer, Ryan talk immigration)


College students legally in the U.S. via deferred action don’t qualify for federal student aid or Pell grants. State aid and scholarships vary from state to state. And while 18 states offer in-state tuition rates to all young, undocumented students — regardless of their legal situation — battles over whether deferred-action students are allowed in-state tuition have erupted in other states, including Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia.


Graham said that he hopes immigration reform, if it eventually happens, will give young, undocumented immigrants in the U.S. full access to federal student aid.


“We’re figuring some year — not up to us when — that DREAMers will have access to” federal student loans, Graham said. “But the current bill, the Senate bill, includes the opportunity for DREAMers to access Title IV loans but not, for example, Pell grants.”


Margie McHugh, director of the National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy, agreed.


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“It’s likely that scholarship funds like this will still be needed if current versions of the DREAM Act were to pass, because even with positive legislation, if it doesn’t include access to Pell grants, college will still be unaffordable for these students,” she said.


TheDream.US is giving scholarships to students pursuing degrees in non-liberal arts fields such as nursing, teaching and accounting. So far, it has distributed 38 scholarships, and winners are attending a specific set of colleges.


“It is good policy to focus on nurses before art historians,” Graham said, and “Harvard has $35 billion in endowment” to help DREAMers pursuing liberal arts degrees attend.


The scholarships will be worth $25,000 each, and TheDream.US worked out tuition rates with specific schools to ensure that the money will cover the full cost of a degree.


“We’re focusing on places that are low enough in cost that we can send a lot of students there, because we have to raise every dollar for their tuition,” he said. These colleges “offer something: a bachelor’s degree from a good place that will give students a start.”


This is not Graham’s first foray into education philanthropy: He co-founded the District of Columbia College Access Program, a private scholarship fund, which is how he said he first became aware of the unique problems undocumented students face in paying for college.


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