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For mixed status families, could students be reluctant to apply for financial aid amid immigration crackdowns?

Could financial aid forms which reveal parents' immigration status cause anxiety for students?
Element5 Digital
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Could financial aid forms which reveal parents' immigration status cause anxiety for students?

About 75% of undergrads at Cal State Channel Islands apply for financial aid but will they be reluctant to share information about their parents' immigration status?

Soren Jacobson is a student at Cal State Channel Islands. Soren would like to be a nurse. Here’s why:

"I'm a childhood cancer survivor. I've been cancer free for about 16 years now, and I want to go back to the old hospital that I used to be a patient at and take care of other little kids in the oncology department," explains Jacobson.

For Jacobson, federal and state financial aid has been critical in making it possible to go to college. There’s a form which students fill in for aid called a FAFSA—the free application for federal student aid—which is used to calculate financial aid. And although it doesn’t explicitly ask for the immigration status of students’ parents or guardians, it does ask for Social Security numbers.

"A lot of the students, their parents don't have a Social Security number, mainly because their parents aren't from the United States. They're from out of country or they're immigrants, usually. So that's what poses the not being a citizen, not having the Social Security number," explains Jacobson.

In fact, about 75% of the Undergrads at Cal State Channel Islands fill out an application for financial aid and that information isn’t supposed to be shared with other government agencies, including immigration and customs enforcement. But, says Sunshine Garcia, the executive director of financial aid and scholarships at Cal State Channel Islands, the new administration at the White House means it's uncharted waters for parents and students and they are anxious about disclosures in the forms.

"I think this year is going to be tough. Our newer students are a little more cautious about this. We're in very difficult times," said Garcia.

"It's a very different administration with a very different view of higher education. A lot of this data is protected even from other federal entities. The Department of Education can't share information with other entities, and we're going to have to reassure parents and students and probably do more outreach to calm their fears. And I'm not sure we're going to be able to do that," shared Garcia.

"We're going to have to be really calm in our answers because even we're uncertain about things right now, because everything is such in flux and changing. But we just have to provide the parents and students with the facts that we have now and hope they can make the right decision for them. But yeah, these are really unchartered waters we're in right now with this political climate," she said.

These are decisions that mixed-status families are going to have to make within the next month as it's recommended that students apply for State and Federal aid by March 2nd.

Caroline joined KCLU in October 2020. She won LA Press Club's Audio Journalist of the Year Award in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Since joining the station she's won 10 Golden Mike Awards, 6 Los Angeles Press Club Awards, 4 National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards and a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Writing.

She started her broadcasting career in the UK, in both radio and television for BBC News, 95.8 Capital FM and Sky News and was awarded the Prince Philip Medal for her services to radio and journalism in 2007.

She has lived in California for eleven years and is both an American and British citizen - and a very proud mom to her daughter, Elsie.