Rules say no grants for DACA students

Relief funds for legal residents only

New guidelines for colleges make clear that many foreign-born students — including those with temporary authorized status through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program — are to be excluded from more than $6 billion in certain federal emergency grants.

Most colleges and universities in Arkansas have yet to announce how they will distribute this share of coronavirus relief money to their students. The U.S. Department of Education this week said students must be eligible for Title

IV federal aid — available only to U.S. citizens, holders of “green cards” and some other noncitizens such as refugees — to get the grants that are a part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

That leaves out students like Karla Palma, 19, who is studying nursing in Fort Smith and said a relative brought her illegally from Mexico to the U.S. at age 4.

The pandemic has cut into her family’s income, she said. Her mother has seen housekeeping work at hotels dry up since mid-March.

“Bills aren’t going to stop,” Palma said. She’s now looking at getting a summer job rather than attending summer classes as she did before the coronavirus.

Palma, like about 4,530 others in the state, qualifies for temporary authorized status under the federal DACA program created under President Barack Obama. The data on DACA recipients is as of Dec. 31, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“We have some [money] saved up, but at the same time I don’t want to take advantage of my parents,” said Palma, who has a part-time job with Arkansas United, a group that advocates for immigrants. Palma asked that her school not be identified because of threats and harassment she’s received in the past.

Another factor in her summer plans is that the courses are to be online-only, she said. “Nursing is hands-on and doing clinicals,” she said.

But if she were eligible for the grants, she said she thinks she would have applied for the help and would take some summer classes to make progress toward her degree.

“It’s frustrating,” she said. Palma said she’s able to afford college in Arkansas because state legislators last year took action allowing DACA recipients in Arkansas to pay in-state tuition rather than more costly out-of-state rates.

Kevin Azanza, a senior at the University of Arkansas, said he was brought as a 1-year-old to the U.S. from Mexico.

He is a DACA recipient and Walmart store worker. While his job continues during the pandemic, Azanza said his mother has seen her full-time job at a dry cleaners cut to less that two days per week. It’s “a big change” for the family’s finances, and he said he expects to help out his parents.

“Arkansas has taken a step forward this year in allowing for DACA recipients to receive in-state tuition, and I felt like not being able to receive part of this aid is two steps back,” said Azanza, 22.

Azanza said his job hours have increased to about 32 each week. Since the coronavirus outbreak, he said he has ended up working more than he planned while continuing his studies.

“Everything is so scary,” he said, adding that he’s just taking things “one day at a time” as he balances work and school while living at home in Rogers. He’s a double major in

communication and political science, and said he still expects to take summer classes to wrap up his studies by August as planned.

Azanza said he would like to land a job in politics, but he and other DACA recipients are awaiting the outcome of a legal challenge to the program that’s now being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“If something were to happen where the Supreme Court rules against DACA, then my degrees would not really be helpful in my being able to procure a career in what I want,” Azanza said.

Terry Hartle, senior vice president for the American Council on Education, an association of college presidents, told The Associated Press that the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act rescue package places no limits on student eligibility.

“The statute says almost nothing about who is eligible to receive a grant. The Department of Education owns this decision. Period,” Hartle said.

He said the council is disappointed by the policy decision under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who was placed in the position by President Donald Trump. “We strongly believed many of these students needed help,” Hartle said.

Several colleges and universities in the state said this week that they were still considering the federal guidelines.

The Title IV eligibility requirements refer to federal financial aid that includes grant, work-study and loan funds provided to students attending colleges or career schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Most international students do not qualify for Title IV aid.

UA is reviewing the federal guidance “to ensure that we provide our students with the maximum support possible as quickly as we can,” spokesman Mark Rushing said in an email.

“We’ll discuss our thoughts regarding how to distribute the CARES funds with the UA System and we anticipate that this will be discussed at the next meeting of the Board of Trustees as well,” Rushing wrote.

In November, Rushing said UA had 34 DACA recipients enrolled as students — 32 undergraduates and 2 graduate students.

Last fall UA had a total of 27,559 students, according to state data. That included 1,408 international students, according to a university enrollment report.

UA Chancellor Joe Steinmetz and other higher-education leaders have spoken in support of DACA.

Some campuses in the state have a larger share of DACA recipients.

Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas currently has 16 out of a total of 1,307 students who “meet the DACA description,” Chancellor Steve Cole said in an email.

“We’re working to ensure that emergency funding will be distributed as efficiently as possible to eligible students, and will also explore ways to make sure all of our students have what they need to meet their educational goals,” Cole said. The college’s main campus is in De Queen, about 50 miles north of Texarkana.

Other universities also said they were still considering the guidelines.

But last week, the University of Central Arkansas in Conway announced some of its plans for the school’s $4.8 million share of federal dollars allocated for emergency financial aid grants to students.

UCA President Houston Davis send in an April 17 email to the campus that the plan included giving summer tuition grants of $600 to as many as 4,000 students on a “firstcome, first-served” basis.

A UCA spokeswoman said Thursday that the plan is to give out the summer grants as announced.

“We intend to offer a summer

school grant to the first 4,000 students that register for courses. For those students that are eligible for funding from the CARES Act, they will receive the grant from that source of funds,” Amy Whitehead, chief of staff in the university president’s office, said in an email.

This week the U.S. Department of Education also announced aid allocations to higher-education institutions under the CARES Act. These allocations total about $6.2 billion.

Whitehead said there are guidelines for the use of this money going to support schools.

“The guidance that we have received states that any direct-to-student use of the institutional CARES Act funding cannot go to students that are ineligible for Title IV,” Whitehead said.

Whitehead said the university is still assessing the costs related to the coronavirus pandemic, which include providing an estimated $2.8 million in reimbursements to students because of campus housing closures, according to records released to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“We are still assessing the financial impact of covid-19 on our spring, summer and upcoming fall term,” Whitehead said.