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A ceiling on immigrants' hopes
Faced with tuition rules, many illegals can't afford to continue their education

BY JUAN ANTONIO LIZAMA
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Monday, July 18, 2005


Should he try to pursue a college career or resign himself to work in a low-paying job?

If he chooses college, how will he pay for it?

Or should he go back to Mexico, where he has no close relatives, and try to get a college education there?

These questions are eating away at a recent Meadowbrook High School graduate -- an illegal resident whose status threatens to stop his education at the 12th grade.

As an illegal, he doesn't qualify for in-state tuition in Virginia or for federal aid for college.

The student represents the plight of many undocumented Hispanic immigrants graduating from high school who wonder how to pay for college.

An estimated 65,000 undocumented aliens graduate from the nation's high schools each year, according to a 2002 study by the Urban Institute. About two-thirds are of Hispanic descent, said senior researcher Randy Capps.

Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer for the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center who worked on the study, said the number of illegals graduating is hard to pinpoint.

"It's not an extremely precise estimate," he said. "It could be 20 percent higher or lower."

Virginia does not collect statistics on the number of undocumented students graduating from high schools, according to a state Department of Education spokesman.

The Pew Hispanic Center estimated in a 2005 study that 200,000-250,000 undocumented immigrants live in Virginia.

The high school student is among them, and while many of his friends were looking at financial aid options and visiting college campuses, he could only watch from the sidelines as his own graduation approached.

His circumstances are not uncommon.

"I have other [undocumented] friends who don't know what to do -- Salvadorans, Guatemalans," he said.

He arrived in Chesterfield County five years ago. Lured by stories of a better life and prosperity in the United States, he crossed the border illegally, following his mother and seven siblings, who were already here.

Unable to find an avenue to change their immigration status, he and his fam- ily continue to live here as illegal residents.

When he lived in Mexico with his father -- a high school teacher -- he had his education future mapped out.

"After finishing high school, I was going to go to one of the best universities," he said.

But his father died, and "all my dreams came tumbling down," he said.

So he came to join the rest of his family and three years ago started at Meadowbrook as a sophomore. Now, he is contemplating the economic reality of living in a state but not being counted as a resident of that state.

The difference can be significant for someone who wants to go to college. At George Mason University -- one of the Virginia colleges that will accept undocumented students -- in-state students pay tuition of $245 per credit hour. Everybody else pays $715 per credit hour.

The Chesterfield student is scaling back his ambition to a more affordable choice. At J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College, the in-state tuition rate is $75 per credit hour, compared with $223 for out-of-state students.

Federal law prohibits states from offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants unless the same benefits are offered to other U.S. citizens.

There are places in the U.S. where the burden is not so heavy for illegals. Nine Western states have approved policies extending in-state tuition to undocumented students.

These states avoid a conflict with the federal law by providing in-state tuition to U.S. citizen students who meet the same criteria as undocumented students even though they may be living out of the state, said Josh Bernstein, director of federal policy for the National Immigration Law Center.

Last year, a U.S. District Court ruled that Virginia's colleges and universities may turn away illegal immigrants. Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia are among the state's universities that deny admission to undocumented students.

The Virginia General Assembly has considered -- but failed to enact -- legislation either granting or denying access to in-state tuition for undocumented students.

Legislation barring Virginia's institutions of higher education from enrolling undocumented students -- at in-state or out-of-state prices -- has been introduced in the assembly but has not been approved.

Del. Thomas D. Gear, R-Hampton, sponsored that legislation in the spring. Emmanuel J. Puma, Gear's spokesman, said the reason for that legislation is simple.

"They're here illegally and they are breaking the law -- illegally," he said."Do we allow murderers to walk free?"

Puma referred to the attacks four years ago against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and said seven of the foreign hijackers carried fraudulently obtained Virginia ID cards. Some may have been trained in the United States while here illegally, he said.

Faced with paying out-of-state tuition with no federal assistance, the Chesterfield student is looking for an affordable option.

Recently, he went to the Richmond Hispanic Liaison Office, where someone helped him search out information about career programs offered at J. Sargeant Reynolds.

Tanya Gonzalez, manager of the Hispanic Liaison Office, passed along career, tuition and application information from Reynolds' Web site.

"After two years, you can graduate with a paralegal certification," Gonzalez told the student as they glanced through a career list.

He looked on, showing little emotion.

As he sat in a chair chatting with Gonzalez, the recent graduate had concerns other than paying for his education.

"If I go to a university and graduate, after that how am I going to work if I don't have any documents?" he asked.

Gonzalez said, "We need to have the hope that by the time you graduate, the laws would have changed and you would have already straightened out your situation."

Urban Institute senior researcher Capps said the issue of providing government aid to undocumented students is a politically charged one.

"Undocumented immigrants are, by definition, law-breakers," he said.

This sentiment, specially after Sept. 11, has prompted some states to support policies denying undocumented immigrants certain government services.

"My take on it," Capps said, "is once undocumented immigrants are here . . . denying in-state tuition or driver's licenses is not going to deter illegal immigration.

Hispanic high school dropout rates run high. A 2000 study -- the most recent available -- from the National Center for Education found that 27.8 percent of Hispanics 16-24 years old were high school dropouts, compared with 6.9 percent for whites and 13.1 percent for blacks.

Cecelia Espenoza, chairwoman of the education subcommittee of the Virginia Latino Advisory Commission, said the fact that undocumented students don't qualify for in-state tuition makes the dropout problem worse.

The education panel has collected testimony from Hispanics in Virginia, Espenoza said. Some students, she said, have chosen to leave high school because they see their educational path will be cut short, even if they graduate.

"Some students have chosen to drop out [of high school] rather than to pursue something to an end they think is not going to be a positive one," she said.

For now, the Meadowbrook graduate has chosen to hold firm in pursuing a college education. But the uncertainty cuts through his toughness and makes him waver at times.

"Sometimes I just think, think, think about college," he said. "What other step, what other path can I take, what decision am I going to take?"

His stay-at-home mother -- his stepfather provides for the family -- talked one afternoon about her son's educational goals.

"We are sad that he wants to go to college and we can't help him," she said. "All we do is sit down with him and talk about it."

Then she looked at other children in the living room. She still has seven at home. The recent graduate is the oldest.

"All these children are in the same situation," she said. "There's another one who is about to finish high school and won't be able to continue his studies."