New Sonoma State University partnership provides scholarships for undocumented students

Thanks to a new partnership, Sonoma State University’s incoming undocumented students have another option for funding in 2017.

The university has inked a deal with TheDream.US, the nation’s largest scholarship program for undocumented college students, to offer funds to SSU’s incoming 2017 freshmen, said Nick Grizzle, spokesman for the university, and so far 41 incoming Sonoma State students have applied. In the fall of 2016, Sonoma State had 171 undocumented students, with 9,408 students in all.

TheDream.US reaches out to campuses where a high number of students with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) or Temporary Protective Status (TPS) could benefit from access to the scholarship program.

The group partners with more than ?75 colleges nationwide and, in December, Sonoma State University became the 13th college in California, and the sixth CSU to form a partnership with the organization.

TheDream.US has received donations toward its scholarship program from a variety of sources including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan. The couple gave $5 million to the program in 2015.

Monica Robledo, 22, co-chairwoman of SSU’s UndocuScholars Coalition, a student support group, said the new funding opportunity could make all the difference for incoming undocumented students.

Robledo, who came to America from Jalisco, Mexico, in 2001 at the age of 6, said that one of the biggest problems facing undocumented students on college campuses is the feeling they don’t belong. Often, she said, that’s because of family and work obligations that take them out of the center of campus life.

Undocumented students are not eligible for financial aid, nor in many states are they eligible for grants through the state. That’s not the case in California, yet Robledo still finds herself needing to pursue multiple scholarships and hold down a 32-hour-a-week job just to fund her schooling.

According to TheDream.US, there are about 1,300,000 undocumented youth eligible for DACA and about 65,000 graduate from high school every year.

But because of a lack of federal aid, only ?5-10 percent enroll in college.

“At a lot of our club meetings, we discuss ways to be more involved, but work or family life gets in the way,” said Robledo, a psychology major who intends to become a university professor. “(Funding) gives you the opportunity to feel like what you’re doing is valued.”

A number of undocumented students she knows have dropped out, she said.

“We don’t feel like we belong because we lack that relationship with the institution, with the school as a whole,” she said. “Undocs count. We make valuable contributions to society. So having that extra opportunity (at funding) is indirectly saying that our opinions count.”

TheDream.US started in 2014, and in the past three years, the organization has distributed about $14 million in scholarships to more than 1,700 scholars across the country.

Mariana Garcia Martinez is the faculty adviser for the SSU’s UndocuScholars Coalition and an adjunct professor in Chicano studies.

She said that there are about seven to ?10 students who are regularly involved in the UndocuScholars support group’s efforts to help undocumented students around issues such as housing, finances, social connections and educational goals.

The number of involved students lags, she said, because most students she knows hold down more than one job.

The partnership comes at an important time, she said, especially with President-elect Donald Trump’s talk of ending DACA, which allows students to get a driver’s license and work permit even if they’re undocumented.

“If they remove DACA, it will definitely have an impact,” she said. “It will mean that students will need more funding, so this partnership basically comes at the most critical time for a lot of undocumented students.”

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.