HOMESTEAD, Fla.
When Fabiola Guevara graduated from South Dade Senior High School in June, 11 years after her mother fled with her from Mexico, she had nearly a perfect 4.0 grade point average.
Her dream was to enroll in a state university nursing program, but she didn’t even apply. Guevara couldn’t afford higher education.
Like thousands of other illegal immigrant students, Guevara was ineligible for college financial aid. And it would cost triple what legal Florida residents pay, impossible on her mother’s housekeeper wages, to attend a public university because undocumented students don’t qualify for in-state tuition discounts.
“When I started high school, it never hit me that when I graduated, I had no place to go,” says Guevara, who is 17. “I studied here all my life. What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? Work as a housekeeper? Pick beans in the fields?”
Federal law prohibits illegal immigrant students from receiving government-backed loans and grants to attend college. The law, which was part of 1996 immigration reforms, also discourages states from providing these students with in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities.
But lawmakers in Congress have proposed legislation to help students like Guevara. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, more commonly known as the DREAM ACT, would allow undocumented students who arrived in the U.S. before they turned 16 and have lived here at least five years to become temporary legal residents, making them eligible for college financial aid and other benefits.
