Ease of Access to Higher Education

I apologize that blogging was not as much of a priority this summer. My construction job honesty kicked my butt. It is incredible how taxing manual labor is on the body, even if you are eighteen and healthy. I have never minded getting up early in the morning, but there were definitely some mornings I wished my alarm didn’t have to go off.

 I did get a few weeks off this summer to attend several kicking showcases and lacrosse tournaments. Looking back, I know I was lucky to have been able to travel with my mom and enjoy some solid time with her.  We also toured an incredible number of colleges. The football camp in Tennessee also meant a trip to North Carolina and South Carolina. Our trip to Wisconsin also meant we drove through Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. I had been to a few colleges in California but hadn’t seen many schools outside of the West Coast.

 I am now back at school and of course, everyone is buzzing about starting the common application for college. There are questions after questions on family educational history and background. This afternoon, I could not help but think about the incredible number of Hispanic students that have no idea how to navigate the “common app”, or know how to answer questions in a manner that will benefit them. Then out of the blue, as I am thinking of what I would do if I did not have a college counselor or my college-educated parents to help out, Jose texted me with questions on his daughters’ application. Jose’s daughter is also a senior. He was unsure what address to use as his employer's address because we were always on job sites. He did not realize he needed to use the address of our headquarters. He also had no idea what his job category or title was.

I answered all his questions as best as I could. I guess I should be flattered that he would ask me, but he is probably too embarrassed to ask our boss. A few hours ago, I decided to google “immigrants and higher education”. The very first URL entry was from Higher Ed Immigration Portal (https://www.higheredimmigrationportal.org) which reported that “First- and second-generation immigrant and international students make up one out of every three students enrolled in higher education in the U.S.”. That statement was highly encouraging. However, when I dug deeper, it was actually one in four because they were including international students.

The Postsecondary National Policy Institute (PNPI) also has a very informative website that had encouraging statistics.  According to their data in 2018, immigrants made up almost 14% of the overall population, yet 17% of US adults that had a bachelor’s degree were born aboard. In addition, college attendance rates for immigrants in the US increased by 38% between 2010 and 2018, while attendance rates for US citizens only increased by 24%.

Unfortunately, through this search, I did discover that the US has established federal policies that significantly impact access to higher education, degree completion and post-graduate career opportunities for undocumented, immigrants and first-generation Americans. These include:

·      Policies around Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

·      Federal Prohibitions on Postsecondary Benefits

·      Prohibitions on In-State Tuition based on Residency

·      Lack of materials for those with language deficiency

DACA was front-page news for several months when the Trump administration came into power. It was originally implemented by the Obama administration to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children. DACA provides two-year work permits and grants of protection from deportation. Unfortunately, DACA is temporary and does not guarantee citizenship. Threatening DACA would have been incredibly harmful to almost half a million undocumented students enrolled in post-secondary education. This population makes up less than 2% of total post-secondary school students, however, it is critical that they have work permits to earn income to support their education including tuition, books, and housing. Fortunately, DACA protections remained intact.  I am hopeful the Biden administration will expand DACA to include more basic benefits for this population.

There are currently federal prohibitions on postsecondary education that blocks state and local public benefits for non-qualified aliens unless the state passes an affirmative law making them eligible. These benefits include financial aid as well as admission.

There is also a federal prohibition on “in-state” tuition. Section 505 of the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act basically says that you can not claim in-state tuition if you are not a “citizen of the US” even if you are a resident of the state. Fortunately, over 20 states offer in-state tuition on other criteria such as the location of your high school.

Language is definitely a barrier to education for immigrant students. Currently, only 50% of the immigrant population report they have limited English proficiency. Although in recent years, more educational material including financial aid documents and applications are increasingly available in other languages, not having a solid command of the English language is a distinct disadvantage. A 2019 report found that Mexican immigrants are less likely to be proficient in English than the overall foreign-born population. About 46 percent of Mexicans reported limited English proficiency, compared to about 46 percent of all immigrants. Approximately 4 percent of Mexican immigrants spoke only English at home, versus 16 percent of all immigrants.

Sadly, I also read that along with the uplifting statistics on increased postsecondary school enrollment of immigrants, that in 2016, immigrants from Mexico and Central America have the lowest attainment rates of two-year degrees (13% and 16% respectively) compared to 28% of Sub-Saharan Africans and 24% of Europeans; as well as the lowest attainment rates of a bachelor degree. Only 6% of immigrants from Mexico and 7% from Guatemala compared to 78% from India, 54% from Korea, and 52% from China.

Although New Mexico has the largest percentage of Hispanics and Latinos at 47%, California has the largest overall population of 15.6 million Hispanics and Latinos, the largest racial or ethnic group. In recent years there has been a significant increase of those being admitted to 2-year, and 4 years programs. In July UC announced that it had offered a record number of Latino students admission to its nine undergraduate campuses for this fall. The students now comprise UC’s largest ethnic group of admitted freshmen, increasing from 34% last year to 36%. Asian American students remained at 35 percent and white students decreased by a percentage point to 21 percent of admitted freshmen. The proportion of African American students inched higher from 4.8 percent to 5 percent and American Indian students remained at 0.5 percent.

Again, these statistics are promising but they still need financial aid and college guidance to get them through the programs to graduation. More federal and state funding should be allocated to the retention of these students once admitted in the form of tuition assistance and on-campus resources.

Sources

https://professionals.collegeboard.org/guidance/financial-aid/undocumented-students

https://pnpi.org/immigrant-students-in-higher-education/ 

https://www.higheredimmigrationportal.org/

Education levels of US immigrants are on the rise. Jens Manuel Krogstad and Jynnah Radford (September 2018)

College-Educated Immigrants in the US. Kira Olsen-Medina and Jeanne Batalova (September 2020)

Mexican Immigrants in the US. Emma Israel and Jeanne Batalova (November 2020)

UC admission of California students at all-time record high. UC Office of the President (July 16, 2020)