A privately funded scholarship program is to underwrite the educations of 33 undocumented students from Georgia at two out-of-state universities.
The Dream U.S. Opportunity Scholarship, the nation’s largest scholarship program for DREAmers — students who came to the U.S. as children and lack documentation — offered the annual scholarships to attend Eastern Connecticut State University and Delaware State University.
In 2012, President Barack Obama took executive action to create a program for unauthorized immigrants who entered the U.S. as children before June 2007, and who are under 34 years old.
Known as DACA — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — has temporarily protected almost 700,000 people nationally from deportation.
In an effort to provide undergraduate educational opportunities for prospective DREAmer students in states like Georgia, where they are required to pay out-of-state tuition or prohibited from enrolling the state’s colleges and universities, the scholarships are to pay up to $80,000 to help fund the costs of tuition, fees, on-campus housing and meals.
David Velazques, a spokesperson for Dream U.S., told Global Atlanta that the immigration status of the participating students has to be renewed every two years. Their status when they graduate, he added, would depend on the laws in place at that time.
He also said that Georgia was among the states with the highest number of recipients, probably because of the state’s tough laws preventing them from entering state colleges and universities.
In 2010 the Georgia Board of Regents banned undocumented students from attending Georgia’s top five public universities and prohibited them from qualifying for in-state tuition. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld this policy in a ruling that condones segregation in higher education.
The undocumented students are not allowed to attend any public institution that “did not admit all academically qualified applicants” in the last two years forbidding them to attend any school where an undocumented student could take the place of a U.S. citizen.
The rule also requires undocumented students to pay out-of-state tuition, about four times higher than in-state tuition, even for students who’ve lived in Georgia almost all of their lives.
Georgia is the only state in the nation that forbids DREAMers both to attend public universities and denies them in-state tuition.
Donald E. Graham, the former chief executive officer of The Washington Post Co. and the co-founder of TheDream.US., said in a news release that “We are proud of the role that we, along with Eastern Connecticut State University and Delaware State University, are able to play in empowering these inspiring young people to achieve their full potential. We look forward to sharing in the many contributions they will bring to the Delaware and Connecticut communities, and to the country as a whole.”
The fund has offered 81 scholarships with more than one-third awarded to Georgia students. According to the June 29 release, Georgia has more than 22,000 DREAMers with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACCA) or Temporary Protective (TPS) status.
For more information, call Xakota Espinoza of BerlinRosen Public Affairs at (646) 517-1810 or David Velazquez at (703) 345-6463 or by email at david.velazquez@thedream.us
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