Eduardo Rojas, a 19-year old UW freshman, is the first of nine children in his family to go to college. Always the motivated student, Rojas knew from an early age that he’d do whatever it took to earn his diploma. But he knew it wouldn’t be easy.
That’s because Rojas is an undocumented immigrant. His family migrated to the United States when he was just two years old from an impoverished farming community in central Mexico. Until now, this meant he couldn’t qualify for any state financial aid.
“When senior year hit, I suddenly realized…ok, what am I going to do now?” he says.
It’s a question that undocumented high school graduates have been asking themselves for years.
Washington’s community of “Dreamers” – young people who migrated illegally to the U.S. as children and have grown up as de facto American citizens – are already eligible for in-state tuition under House Bill 1079, which passed in 2003.
But as the price tag of tuition continues to rise, pursuing a college degree without financial aid becomes increasingly impossible for lower-income students.
According to the Washington Budget and Policy Analysis Center, 40% of undocumented teenagers in the United States state drop out of high school. Of the remaining 65,000 who graduate each year, only 49% go on to pursue higher education. There’s clearly a huge opportunity gap for Dreamers, and it starts with access to education.
But in Washington state, this is the year that everything changes.
On February 26, 2014, Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law the long-awaited Washington State Dream Act, which grants undocumented students like Rojas access to college financial aid through the state need grant (SNG). The new law (officially titled the Real HOPE Act by Senate Republicans who drafted the final version of the bill) also expands the state need grant fund by $5 million to accommodate an increase in applicants.
According to Emily Murphy, policy manager at OneAmerica, more than 575 Dreamers have already submitted their applications to the state financial aid program. She says more than 800 would be eligible for aid during the 2014/2015 school year.
“There have already been huge, life-changing implications for the young people this bill is trying to benefit,” she says.
Rojas just submitted his state need grant application. He says he couldn’t be more excited to see what opportunities it might bring.
“This could be a huge relief for me,” he says.
This past year, the aspiring bioengineering major put himself through school with his earnings from working in construction every summer, plus most weekends and holiday breaks — laying concrete, doing installations and other kinds of “heavy work.”
But together with the Costco Scholarship that Rojas won last year, this is barely enough to cover the cost of tuition and books. Getting a state need grant would mean he could stop working long, grueling hours in construction, and use that time to take advantage of collegiate opportunities.
“I won’t be held back anymore,” he says. “I could use that time productively toward investing in my education, interning and figuring out what kind of career I want to do.”
Rojas says a grant would also enable him to move closer to campus and start participating in student life, rather than having to commute more than an hour from Tukwila every day.
More importantly, Rojas hopes the WA Dream Act will incentivize other undocumented teens to graduate from high school and pursue a college degree. He says he was lucky to grow up in a household that stressed the value of higher education, and even luckier to win a generous scholarship that didn’t care about his citizenship status. But not everyone is so lucky.
As an active participant in the movement for equal education access, Rojas says he’s seen a lot of smart, promising Dreamers give up on college because there are so many financial barriers in the way. When he heard news that the WA Dream Act finally passed, it gave him hope.
“Honestly, I just got that feeling…like everything’s much more possible,” he says, breaking into a wide, boyish grin. “It’s a great accomplishment in equal opportunity for education, and it’s really great compared to what there was before.”
The Dream Act’s road to success was long and full of setbacks.
The biggest challenge, according to Latino/a Educational Achievement Project (LEAP) Director Ricardo Sanchez, was seeing the original bill die in the Republican-controlled state Senate in 2013. He says that was discouraging because it was the closest anyone had come to passing a State Dream Act after a decade of trying.
“That was probably the greatest obstacle,” he says.
But Dream Act advocates refused to give up. Not wanting to suffer the same defeat twice, OneAmerica, LEAP and other community organizations supporting the bill amped up their campaign efforts even more in 2014. They were determined to herald the bill to victory.
Emily Murphy says OneAmerica alone made thousands of phone calls, canvassed neighborhoods daily and descended on Olympia with an army 250-activists strong. She says there was an “unprecedented turnout” of students, teachers and education administrators who showed up to testify at the bill’s second hearing.
And it worked. Senator Barbara Bailey (R-WA), the majority coalition caucus leader who spearheaded the opposition to the State Dream Act in 2013, ended up drafting an identical version of the original bill after its 2014 hearing. The Senate voted it through less than a month later by “overwhelming margins.”
According to Murphy, the most powerful drivers of the campaign were the undocumented young people who shared their personal stories at the hearing. She says hearing Dreamers talk about their experiences humanized the issue for Sen. Bailey and other legislators who originally opposed the bill.
“The biggest piece of the entire advocacy campaign was making sure that students were at the forefront, telling their stories,” she says. “They talked about their dreams, how hard they’ve worked, what it means to them to have the same opportunities as their peers. That’s what ultimately made the difference.”
It also didn’t hurt that hard evidence was published in February by the Washington Budget and Policy Analysis Center proving that a State Dream Act will bolster the state economy in the long term.
According to the report, for every dollar invested in a dreamer through the state need grant, the state will get $2 back in tax earnings once that student graduates college and enters the workforce. This results in a net revenue of $43,000 per college graduate, over a 40 year working life – money that can be re-invested in education, public infrastructure and job creation.
The Policy Center also reported that for every $1,000 in grants received, a dreamer is 4% more likely to pursue higher education.
“These students can make some significant economic contributions to our state,” says Murphy. “And that benefits everyone.”
Amidst strong bipartisan support for the State Dream Act, there remains some concern about viability. Critics argue that adding more applicants to the pool will only spread Washington’s already-strained higher education fund even thinner.
These naysayers have a point. Of the 74,000 students who applied for the 2012/2013 school year, only 32,000 were awarded aid. That’s a 40% denial rate.
But Murphy says the dream act is about equal opportunity and equal access – not about fixing the funding gap.
“It’s about eligibility, equality and basic civil rights,” she says. “Now, the legislature must figure out how to better support higher education in general. But that’s a separate issue.”
“I understand it’s not going to fix everything,” Rojas agrees. “But it’s going to be a huge help, and I’m grateful for that.”