Championing Our DREAMers

Since our organization’s founding, we have mobilized to ensure that every student has the opportunity to earn a bachelor’s degree, regardless of their citizenship status. Even before the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program began in 2012, College Track worked to secure in-state tuition for our undocumented California scholars and began distributing scholarships specifically for all our undocumented students, who are not eligible for federal aid or many citizenship-based scholarships.

With DACA, many of our scholars are able to legally work, travel outside of the country, and build a more stable future. However, the ongoing uncertainty of the DACA program continues to jeopardize our DREAMers’ futures and their communities.

In the past decade, we have added dedicated DREAMer support staff and services including legal aid for immigration cases, financial-aid advising, scholarships, emergency funds, and paid internship programs.

Equipping our undocumented scholars for a life of opportunity, choice, and power lies at the heart of College Track’s 25-year commitment to educational equity and social justice.

College Track’s Undocumented Scholars*

88 College students and alumni with DACA protection

139 College students and alumni without DACA protection

50+ High school students without DACA protection

*As of February 2023

“One way for me to pay forward the privilege that I received— being a College Track student, going to UC Santa Cruz and graduating—is by offering services to the community members who need them. I know firsthand what it is like to live in fear, in the shadows. So any chance I get to help someone come out of that space, I want to be able to do that.”

B.A., Literature, University of California, Santa Cruz

Senior Paralegal, immigration law firm

“Every time I visit our students, I see them as my younger self or one of my siblings. I have earned their trust to be able to be that educator in their life that they can come to for any immigration issues or related questions.

Scholars ask me, ‘Why should I go to college?’ And I tell them, ‘A degree from an American university is valid anywhere in the world. You’re opening the door to opportunity, choice, and power everywhere, not just in this country.’”

Darwin

B.A., International Studies and Global Politics, University of San Francisco Manager of DREAMer Services, College Track