Des Moines Register
06-06-07
Immigrants struggle to go to college
COST: Sending money to relatives often leaves nothing for tuition
FEDERAL LOANS: Those here illegally are ineligible to receive aid
By LISA ROSSI
REGISTER AMES BUREAU
Perry, Ia. - As late as their junior year at Perry High School, Hispanic students
think they are going to college. By their senior year, reality sinks in, says
guidance counselor Tamara Valline.
The average annual cost for one year at one of Iowa's three state universities
is $15,177 - well beyond the means of most immigrant families.
Federal financial aid is closed to immigrants who have entered the United States
without permission. And some students who could be college-bound work long
hours to help support their families new to Iowa, educators say.
While Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of Iowa's population, the
proportion of immigrant children who are going on to college or formal job training
after high school is not keeping pace.
That trend has community leaders and educators worried about the implications
for the state facing a labor shortage and for the economic future of immigrant
families.
"I was a very good student in Mexico," said Daniel Soto, 17, a student at Perry
High School. "Right now I look up to my cousins. They came from Mexico and go
to the university. I want to be with them."
Emmanuel Torrez, a 17-year-old junior at Perry, is among those for whom
college is unlikely.
Torrez, whose parents are from Mexico, said he works late into the night at
Tyson Foods in Perry to help pay family bills and send money to Mexico. He said
he can barely stay awake for high school, much less think about college.
He has a passion for drawing. The pictures he draws remind him of the violence
he and his family left behind in Compton, Calif., where they lived before moving
to Perry, he said.
"I wanted to be the one that would go to college," he said. "I would be the first
one. I was like - I don't know if I could make it."
Many community colleges target the rapidly growing segment of Hispanic
students from Iowa high schools, said educators at Perry High School, which has
one of the highest percentage of Hispanic students in an Iowa school.
But public universities have lagged in their efforts to reach out to this population
that admittedly has obstacles to overcome in obtaining an advanced education,
they said.
"I'm not sure they are doing a great job getting that information to students," said
Valline, the Perry High counselor.
"Community colleges will go in the ESL (English as second language)
classrooms to say what services they have to help these students," she said.
"We don't have any of the regent schools coming in and talking about specific
services available for our students. I know right now there is a big push for
colleges, because of funding, to get more minorities students in, so I think it
would be to their benefit to probably come and try to get some of that information
to the students."
The criticism comes amid a projected labor shortage in Iowa and a national
debate over how to educate children of immigrant families.
The U.S. Senate is debating broad immigration legislation this week, part of
which includes the Dream Act. That legislation would repeal federal laws that
forbid states from offering in-state tuition rates to students who are in the United
States illegally.
The act also establishes a path to citizenship for people who entered the United
States illegally as children but have earned a college degree or enlisted in the
military.
Proponents of the bill said it could give talented students like Soto a chance to
contribute to their communities. Opponents say college is competitive enough
already without creating a pipeline for children of illegal immigrants to compete
for spots.