Undocumented Undergrads Continue to Face Challenges

This entry was posted on 01.28.15, in Data / Research, Diversity, Students. Bookmark the permalink.

Undergraduates who are in the United States illegally face numerous challenges in their pursuit of a higher education, including anxieties about paying for college, fears of deportation, and worries about being accepted on campuses, according to a report released on Monday by the University of California at Los Angeles.

The report, “In the Shadows of the Ivory Tower: Undocumented Undergraduates and the Liminal State of Immigration Reform,” is based on a yearlong survey of 909 undergraduate students from 55 countries. Participants attended a range of two- and four-year public and private colleges.

Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco, dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, and Robert T. Teranishi, a professor of education there, were two of the principal investigators on the study. Mr. Suárez-Orozco said the survey was significant because such students are often stigmatized, making it “very difficult to get good-quality research” on the challenges they face. The amount of data collected through the study makes it the first and largest of its kind, he said. <Read more.>

Via Maddy Berner, The Chronicle of Higher Education.