Northern Arizona University is one of more than 80 schools to join the nation’s largest college access scholarship program for immigrant students. As KNAU’s Sakya Calsoyas reports, the Dream.US program provides tuition assistance and other services for young undocumented Dreamers.
The national scholarship program applies to high school, GED and current community college and university students who arrived in the U.S. at a young age. They don’t have to be part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or have Temporary Protected Status to participate in the scholarship program.
Arizona voters this November passed Proposition 308, which generally allows non-citizen students to receive in-state college tuition if they’ve attended school in Arizona for at least two years and graduated from public, private or homeschool within the state.
It’s estimated that nearly 2 million Dreamers reside in the U.S., with close to 100,000 graduated from high school annually. The vast majority are first generation college students. So far, about 6,500 undocumented immigrant students across the U.S. have received the national scholarship.