A few days before winter break, Lynda McGee, a college counselor at Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles Unified, got an unexpected visit from a student’s father.
The man, a warehouse worker who emigrated from Guatemala 28 years ago, wanted to make sure that McGee knew his wishes firsthand.
“My daughter going to college is more important than my risk of deportation,” he said in Spanish as the student, a high school senior, translated.
He insisted that McGee help the teen, a U.S.-born citizen, fill out the FAFSA, or the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which is used by college-bound students to calculate all-important financial aid packages. But the application asks for parents’ Social Security numbers, which the father does not have because he is not a legal resident. A missing number could be a red flag about the father’s immigration status ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to track down and deport undocumented immigrants.
“Unfortunately, I have dozens of students in this same situation,” McGee said. “They have to choose between their future and that of their parents.”
Submitting financial aid forms this college application season has become a potentially life-altering family decision for California high school seniors with undocumented parents — a predicament also faced by many college students because FAFSA forms generally must be submitted annually to determine ongoing aid.
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The Department of Education, which administers the FAFSA used to calculate Pell Grants, federal loans and other aid for students, typically does not share immigration status data with other government agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But college counselors and financial aid support groups have recently told students from mixed-status families, many of whom are lower-income and could benefit the most from federal aid, that there’s still risk.
A recent notice from the National College Attainment Network, a nonprofit student advocacy group, noted that the Higher Education Act “prohibits the use of data for any purpose other than determining and awarding federal financial assistance.” But it said it “cannot assure mixed-status students and families that data submitted to U.S. Department of Education, as part of the FAFSA process, will continue to be protected.”
Daisy Gonzales, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, the state agency responsible for administering financial aid programs, similarly urged caution.
“We cannot speculate on what the incoming federal administration may do,” she said.
The anxiety over federal financial aid comes after more than a year of complications involving the FAFSA, which is typically released each October. A shortened version of the 2023-24 FAFSA was supposed to streamline the process but instead gave way to glitches, data entry problems and delays amid mounting frustrations for students and families who had to wait on applying. The Government Accountability Office said the fiasco led to a 9% dip in first-time submissions for the last academic year.
A tracker from the National College Attainment Network also shows a 9.6% drop in applications through December compared with the same time last academic year. It is unclear how much of that can be attributed to concerns over immigration status disclosure.
In California, about 3.3 million people live in mixed-status households, according to USC’s Equity Research Institute. About 1 in 5 are children younger than 18, like the student whose father came to McGee’s office at Downtown Magnets High School.
One of the top pupils in her class, the student lives with her parents in Koreatown and dreams of one day working in the film industry. She’s applied to UCLA, Stanford, Cornell and several Cal State campuses. But she has hit pause on submitting the FAFSA because of fear it could hurt her family.
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“Why does Trump getting elected mean I might have to suffer as a citizen for my parents’ choice of moving to a better life in America?” said the student, who requested that her name be withheld to avoid identifying her parents.
Her father sees things differently. “Filling out the FAFSA might or might not hurt me. But if it can help her, she should do it,” he said an in interview.
Trump has promised to begin deporting millions of undocumented immigrants on “Day One” of his presidency. In a recent NBC interview, he said U.S. citizens from mixed-status households could also join their relatives in order to avoid “breaking up families.”
The remarks, coupled with campaign promises on deportation, have caused widespread distress.
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Gonzales said information submitted via the FAFSA “can be shared across federal agencies including federal immigration enforcement.”
She also noted that the California Dream Act Application is available to students from mixed-status families who need aid from the state, such as Cal Grants, to attend the University of California, Cal State and in-state community colleges.
But that application doesn’t gain students the breadth of cash, including work-study aid, that comes from federal assistance, Los Angeles-area high school college counselors explained.
“The best way to get the most aid is to apply to everything a student is eligible for,” said Jacqueline Villatoro, a college counselor at Linda Marquez High School in Huntington Park whose students include several U.S. citizens with undocumented parents.
“But Trump’s election has thrown a wrench in things,” she said. “How do we provide our families with accurate information but also avoid creating fear? A lot of us are just in a wait-and-see mode.”
“Some parents say they file taxes anyway, so the government already has the information about their immigration status, and they want their kids to apply for aid,” Villatoro said. “Others come to us and are scared.”
Federal financial aid is not available to students without U.S. citizenship or other government authorization to reside in the United States. Although the FAFSA does not explicitly ask for the immigration status of students’ parents or guardians, those without Social Security numbers must go through extra steps on the application.
California colleges and universities generally recommend that students apply for state and federal aid by March 2.
That gives parents and students 41 days after Trump’s inauguration to consider whether and how immigration enforcement may affect their families.
“It’s a waiting game that is anxiety-inducing,” said another student at Downtown Magnets High School, a senior who is applying to UC and Cal State campuses, as well as Wellesley College.
The student, an American citizen, requested that her name be withheld to avoid identifying her mother and father, who are undocumented immigrants from Puebla, Mexico. She aspires to become a neonatal nurse practitioner.
“It’s already a stressful process navigating how to get into college and how to pay for it as a first-generation student who is doing mostly all of this on your own,” she said. “But with this FAFSA confusion and wait, it feels like my wings are being clipped.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
