My family is a product of public education. My dad was born and raised in a small town in New Mexico. He worked from the age of 13 and was fully responsible for supporting himself after high school. When he graduated, it was common for people to go straight into the workforce or join the military. My dad, however, was interested in pursuing other opportunities, so he started at a community college and later transferred to a public university, graduating in three years. He worked throughout college and graduated with what would be, in current dollars, more than $200,000 of debt. He was fortunate enough to get a good job in the Houston area, work off the debt, and raise a family.
While my dad was able to navigate these challenges, students today face even greater hurdles. Because of actions by federal courts and the Trump administration, many students with aspirations like my dad’s are affected by the stripping of in-state tuition for undocumented students. To address this, emergency mutual funds like Keeping the Texas DREAM Mutual Fund raise money to support undocumented students facing tuition increases and in need of financial assistance. These funds, however, rely on donations to continue their critical work. For me, being born and raised to parents who are US citizens (birthright and naturalized) and being a US citizen yourself, you don’t perceive lack of documentation as a hurdle in your educational pursuits.
With my dad’s luck, hard work, and knowledge, he was able to make college an option for my sister and I. Growing up in Houston, I was surrounded by a diverse community of people with many different backgrounds and pathways. I realized in high school how unequally opportunity is distributed within education. I saw how some students could afford tutors and how students who were already high-achieving received even more support and opportunities. Many students similar to me in classroom performance and test scores didn’t attend college because of the cost and lack of scholarship support—or because they didn’t have the required documents or citizenship status to enroll…