ASU ends scholarship program for illegal immigrants

Carolyn Hileman* | February 20, 2008

Filed Under Immigration, Schools and Education

A controversial scholarship that benefited Arizona State University students who are in the country illegally has quietly faded away.

As many as 200 students who graduated from Arizona high schools received the private scholarship money through the university this year.

But now, the money is spent, and ASU is advising students who depended on it to “seek private funding sources.”

The scholarships were a response to Proposition 300, a voter-approved law that requires illegal immigrants to pay the out-of-state tuition rate at the state’s public universities and colleges.

The law also prohibits those students from receiving any type of financial assistance funded with taxpayer money.

In September, ASU President Michael Crow said the university was helping students with private money already in the school’s coffers.

Based on Crow’s estimate that 150 to 200 students would receive the aid, the total amount disbursed was approximately $1.8 million.

Luis Avila is a 25-year-old ASU student involved with several campus groups that work with Latino students, some of them undocumented. He said he is already hearing from students who will lose their scholarship.

“They don’t know what they are going to do,” Avila said. “We are going to lose a lot of brilliant minds.”

Terri Shafer, assistant vice president of the Office of Public Affairs, wrote in an e-mail that ASU will continue to try to help the students.

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