Bill would make it cheaper for some Mexican students to attend college in U.S.
LOS ANGELES — Abril Hernandez, a student at Southwestern Community College, sat in her car waiting in a seemingly never-ending line to cross the San Diego Mexico border. It had already been a two-hour wait, but she knew the drill by now.
“You spend most of your time in line,” Hernandez, 33, said in Spanish. “When you finally get home you only have time for sleep.”
Hernandez, who was born in the U.S., has lived on both sides of the border while studying for an engineering degree at Southwestern College. Before her child was born, she would spend weekdays living with her father in San Diego so that she could attend class and avoid the high cost of non-resident tuition. On weekends, she would cross over to Tijuana to go home to her mother.
“It was uncomfortable having to go back and forth and not have a stable home,” she said.
Hernandez now stays in San Diego full time. But for several years before her baby was born, she was one of approximately 7,000 students from kindergarten through college — among 100,000 people total — who cross the San Ysidro Port of Entry each day. Binational students living near the border, many of whom are U.S.-born children in low-income households, attend school in California but may live in Mexico because it’s more affordable.
To serve these binational students, Assemblymember David Alvarez, D-San Diego, introduced Assembly Bill 91 to make it easier for students who live in Mexico to attend college in California. The bill would create a five-year pilot program allowing low-income students who live in Mexico within 45 miles of the California border to pay in-state tuition to attend one of seven campuses in the San Diego and Imperial Valley Counties Community College Association.
“It’s a well-integrated economy that we’re proud of in this region,” Alvarez said in an interview. “We hope that by educating the future workforce — which happens to live on the Mexican side — we can continue to grow as a region and create more economic opportunities.”
Under his bill, each participating college would host up to 200 binational students during the pilot phase. Students would have to be U.S. citizens or Mexican citizens with a visa to participate in the program.
Qualifying students would pay in-state tuition, which is $46 per unit compared with the average $300 non-resident fee.
“We believe so strongly in our region and believe it’s important to treat binational students as residents with in-state tuition as opposed to foreign students,” Alvarez said.
Legislative officials have not yet calculated how much the proposal would cost the state. It comes as California faces an estimated $22.5 billion budget deficit and huge enrollment drops at many community colleges.
Enrollment at community colleges across California severely declined between fall 2019 and fall 2021, dropping to its lowest level in 30 years. At Southwestern College — one of the San Diego campuses that could participate in the pilot program — enrollment decreased by 20.3%.