Undocumented students struggle to pay for Arizona universities. What resources are there?
As a rising senior at PXU Digital Academy in Phoenix, Maria Magdalena Dominguez Torres has started her college search, hoping to pursue culinary or performing arts. Not being able to pay in-state tuition in Arizona state universities because of her undocumented status, however, has become an important factor in her choice of school.
For Dominguez, going to college means so much more than just continuing a path that many Arizonan high schoolers follow — she would become the first person in her family to pursue higher education.
Her family has lived in the Phoenix area since they migrated from Mexico in 2004. Dominguez's parents were born in Veracruz, and she was born in Chihuahua. Her parents have always encouraged her to continue her studies, and graduating college would mean their efforts to give her more opportunities have been fruitful.
Dominguez would like to study near her family, but local tuition costs have pushed her to look at institutions in other states — including Brigham Young University, a private university in Utah — given that tuition fees would be cheaper for her there than if she attends Arizona State University.
Proposition 300 made undocumented students ineligible for in-state tuition at public universities. This means undocumented students have to pay at least 50% more to attend state colleges. This is why some, like Dominguez, look for out of state options or decide not to pursue higher education all together.
About 2,000 undocumented students graduate high school in Arizona each year, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. While funding resources are available, both from the school and education and immigrant rights organizations, many continue to struggle with paying high fees.
A November ballot resolution that seeks to provide some undocumented students with access to in-state fees, however, could change that.
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In-state tuition inaccessible to undocumented Arizonans
At least 19 states including California, Texas, Florida and Washington, have legislation or Board of Regents decisions that extend in-state tuition rates to some undocumented students, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Arizona is not one of them.
Arizona Proposition 300, which passed in 2006, requires people to have lawful immigration status to receive public benefits. The measure specifically includes in-state tuition as a public benefit.
Due to this, undocumented students, including “Dreamers,” or those who benefit from the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, aren't allowed to pay in-state tuition at the state’s public colleges and universities, even if they graduated from an Arizona high school.
The DACA program grants temporary protection from deportation as well as work permits to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, known as "Dreamers."
In 2015, DACA recipients received benefits for in-state tuition in Arizona after a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled it constitutional because DACA recipients had legal immigration status in the country. However, in 2017 the Arizona Court of Appeals revoked those benefits and ruled that the state would continue to exclude “Dreamers” from accessing in-state tuition.
Some undocumented students may qualify to pay 150% of state tuition fees at Arizona universities, due to an Arizona Board of Regents policy passed in 2015 and expanded in 2019 titled “Non-Resident Tuition Rate for Arizona High School Graduates.”
The policy states a student who graduated from an Arizona high school but does not qualify for in-state tuition may be eligible to pay 150% of resident tuition if they attended an Arizona high school for a minimum of three years while being physically present in Arizona and having graduated from that high school. The three years of attendance don’t need to be consecutive, and the policy applies regardless of when the student graduated from an Arizona high school.
Despite graduating from an Arizona high school, undocumented students also aren’t eligible to receive federal or state financial aid.
Dominguez said, in her family's case, her father is the only person in her household who has a steady income, which limits her college options.
“Because of our money issues, where my dad is the only one working and I can't really work because of my status, it's much more difficult for me to find a job right now. I'm looking at tuition and how much I'd be paying to attend these colleges,” Dominguez said.
Jose Patiño, vice president of education and external affairs at Aliento, an Arizona-based organization that serves the undocumented, DACA recipients and mixed immigration status families, said he believes the law puts barriers for people who want to better themselves. When he was a student, he said he was affected by the law.
“It made me more determined to pursue my education. It made me more resourceful," Patiño said. "It cost me a lot of stress and anxiety. And a lot of times very frustrated, sometimes crying.”
Patiño said he was able to find a private scholarship to fund his studies at Arizona State University — something he now works to offer other undocumented students through the programs at Aliento.
Resources for undocumented students
Some students opt to attend community college while they figure out how to get into a four-year institution — even if this means staying in community college for a while longer.
Salma Ortiz Diaz worked full-time in order to keep paying tuition costs at South Mountain Community College in Phoenix.
When benefits for “Dreamers” were revoked in 2017, she said she thought she wouldn’t be able to graduate.
“I honestly talked about it with my mom and I was like, ‘I don't know what to do because I feel like I'm never going to graduate ... this is just so impossible for me,’” she told The Arizona Republic.
But she decided to continue studying part-time and applying for scholarships. She ended up graduating with her associate's degree in arts and general studies in 2020 and was able to start a degree in social work at Arizona State University through the Child Welfare Education Program, which offers students financial assistance.
Now a junior at ASU, Ortiz is the advocacy director of Undocumented Students for Educational Equity, a student organization that supports undocumented students and fights for access to education. She said she hopes to pave the way for students like her in higher education and make them feel welcomed, like she did when she first learned about the organization.
“That's what I always wanted because a lot of my friends were citizens or didn't understand, like, my circumstance of being undocumented and living with this fear, but also not knowing what's going to happen, like an uncertainty in my life,” Ortiz said. “So, it was cool seeing people have goals of higher education and also being undocumented.”
While state universities are unable to offer in-state tuition to undocumented students, there are other resources available that can help students fund their education.
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Arizona State University
At ASU, a resource offered to students is DREAMzone (eoss.asu.edu/access/dreamzone), where undocumented students can find links to on-campus resources, community resources and a link to scholarships they are eligible for. Among them, there is the We Rise Scholarship Fund (scholarships.asu.edu), which was created by undocumented students at ASU for undocumented students who hope to attend the university. The amount of the scholarship depends on available funding. The website has information on the criteria to apply.
The website also directs students to databases where they can find more options for funding such as ScholarshipsA-Z and College Depot at Phoenix Public Library.
“Dreamers” at ASU can also receive financial aid from The DREAM fund, which offers scholarships to students with DACA status who qualify for the 150% in-state tuition rate. The application for the Fall 2022 scholarships opens in early July. More information on eligibility criteria can be found on the website (scholarships.asu.edu/scholarship/TheDream).
ASU also has a partnership with TheDream.US, which is a program that provides scholarships to students who have DACA or Temporary Protected Status. Applications open on Nov. 1. Private universities Grand Canyon University and Benedictine University Mesa also partner with TheDream.US.
University of Arizona
Students at the University of Arizona in Tucson can find resources at the Immigrant Student Resource Center. Karla Cruze-Silva, transition team lead at the center, said they partner with organizations such as Aliento or ScholarshipsA-Z as well as with some school districts to reach communities and potential students.
Cruze-Silva said the center does presentations or one-on-one meetings with families to assist them in the process of finding ways of funding tuition — even before students apply to colleges. If students decide to go to the University of Arizona and are admitted, the center keeps working with them to help them find resources to pay for tuition.
The center also partners with Early Academic Outreach, an office at the university that aims to increase the number of low-income, underrepresented and first-generation college students, and works with schools, families and students.
“They actually are going in and doing different workshops, preparing as early as, like, second grade,” Cruze-Silva said. “So we partner with them and if we can’t attend, we train their staff to talk about what are the resources for undocumented students so that they can start thinking about it as early as second grade.”
DACA students at this university can apply to the UA President’s Directed Scholarship Fund and those interested can contact the center at isrc@email.arizona.edu. The center's site also links to a mobile app named Dreamer’s Roadmap which helps undocumented students find scholarship opportunities.
The University of Arizona also has a tool named Scholarship Universe, which matches admitted students with internal and external scholarships. According to the center, some of the scholarships that are referenced there do not require a social security number and undocumented students could apply.
Cruze-Silva said the the center posts financial aid opportunities on social media as well.
“We do definitely have some powerful folks who are willing to help students, assist them in any way possible, and some really great leaders on our campus that are constantly fighting and advocating on behalf of students,” Cruze-Silva said. “But it can feel scary or feel like a lot when you don't know that information ... I would definitely encourage folks to look at our website, look at our social media and just reach out with any questions they may have.”
Northern Arizona University
DACA students at Northern Arizona University can find resources and links to state and national scholarships they are eligible for on the Office of Inclusion website (https://in.nau.edu/inclusion).
Vidal Mendoza, the assistant director of Hispanic, Latine Student Services, said the office of scholarships is working on starting a scholarship for DACA students, but it is unclear when it will be available. Mendoza said it will most likely be funded by community members.
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Grand Canyon University
Undocumented students are eligible for the same tuition rate as any student at Grand Canyon University, one of the largest private universities in the state. Estimates say over 400 undocumented students attend GCU's ground campus according to Bob Romantic, executive director of the Office of Communications and Public Relations at GCU.
The institution offers scholarships based on academic performance that any student can apply to. GCU also partners with TheDream.US., Romantic said its institutional scholarships start at a 3.0 GPA and go up from there.
"If you're coming from high school we have various academic scholarships based on your incoming GPA ... it doesn't matter where you're from or any of that, it's just based strictly on your academics," Romantic said.
The Students Inspiring Students scholarship program awards a full-tuition scholarship to high-achieving, low-income students in GCU's west Phoenix neighborhood. Romantic said that it is not specifically for undocumented students but that it has helped some.
"While it is not a requirement for the scholarship, more than 90 percent of SIS recipients are people of color simply because that is representative of the demographics in our neighborhood," Romantic said.
Additional resources
Undocumented students can look to these websites for additional resources:
Aliento helps undocumented students find resources and scholarships they can apply to and show them the process of applying to college as well as best practices, according to Patiño.
They also connect undocumented students with mentors as well as with students who are already in college to help guide them.
On the November ballot: Hope for undocumented students
In November, Arizona voters will be able to decide if undocumented students can pay in-state tuition, as the Senate Concurrent Resolution 1044 will be on the ballot. If the resolution passes, state universities will be permitted to charge in-state tuition to people without lawful immigration status who are eligible.
The resolution follows other states that currently offer in-state tuition to some undocumented students.
Per the resolution, to be eligible a student must have attended high school or the homeschool equivalent while being physically present in Arizona for at least two years and graduated high school while being physically present in the state, or received a high school equivalency diploma in Arizona. Both requirements need to be met.
Arizona senator Sean Bowie, who co-sponsored the bill for this resolution, said one of the goals of the bill is to retain students who graduated high school in the state to benefit the economy instead of having them go to colleges in other states.
“We want them to work in Arizona, as opposed to going somewhere else. So, obviously, we want to keep talent here. And these are kids who maybe moved to the United States or Arizona when they were very young and had no control over it and have attended high school here and graduated from high school," Bowie said to The Republic. "They're just like other kids. And we want to make sure those kids stay here."
For many undocumented students, this election could impact their futures in higher education. In the case of Dominguez, if the resolution does pass, she said she would start considering state universities as an option to be near her family.
“I feel like I would be able to stay here in the state and stay close to my family while also not having to worry about paying more, but having an equal pay like the rest of the people who can pay in-state tuition,” Dominguez said.
Regardless of what happens, Dominguez said she wants to continue pursuing her education.
“That's something I want to accomplish also because I want to continue learning. I think that's important for me,” Dominguez said. “And I just don't want it to stop in high school — I want to pursue a career and get a good job.”
Reach breaking news reporter Angela Cordoba Perez at Angela.CordobaPerez@Gannett.com or on Twitter @AngelaCordobaP.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Resources available for undocumented students at Arizona universities
