After months of lobbying and debate, a bill that will qualify undocumented students for government financial aid in California is finally on the books.
On Oct. 8, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 131, also referred to as the California Dream Act, into law. The bill allows academically successful students to apply for college financial aid if they can prove they’re on the path to citizenship.
Under current law, undocumented students pay resident tuition rates if they’ve graduated from a California high school and affirmed that they are in the process of applying to legalize their immigration status. Effective. Jan. 1, 2013, AB 131 will expand the law to make those students eligible for Cal Grants and other state financial aid.
“Going to college is a dream that promises intellectual excitement and creative thinking. The Dream Act benefits us all by giving top students a chance to improve their lives and the lives of all of us,” Brown said in a prepared statement.
The legislation builds on AB 130, which made private funding available to the same pool of students earlier this year. Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) authored both bills.
The California Department of Finance estimates 2,500 students will qualify for Cal Grants, at a cost of $14.5 million—or approximately 1 percent of the program’s $1.4 billion budget.
In an e-mail to the Sun, Allan Hancock College spokesperson Rebecca Alarcio said records show there are approximately 200 students who are eligible to apply for state financial aid under the new bill.
“These are students who attended high school in California as undocumented. Most likely, these are students who have lived in California most of their lives and were educated in our system, or they are U.S. citizens who went to high school in California, moved away, and now are back again to attend college,” Alarcio wrote.
“In all, more than 6,000 students receive financial aid [each year] at Allan Hancock College—more than 65 percent of our student body. By our calculation, about one percent of our student body may now be eligible to receive aid under AB 131,” she wrote.
This article appears in Oct 13-20, 2011.