Can I Attend College If I Don’t Have Papers?

Today’s Show

As always in our broadcast, we come with you to inform you about the latest in immigration and also to show you the benefits and good things we have for you.

Today we bring you information that can be of great help, especially to those migrant parents who have their children also in the United States. We have a very special guest, and you already know him because we have had the pleasure of having him with us on previous occasions in our Show Without Borders.

Jaime Ayala is going to be telling us a little bit about what these universities are for immigrants so that we can have a little bit more information for you, specifically our immigrant community.

Definition Of In-State Tuition

In-state tuition is the tuition a student is charged if they live within the state, in our case within the state of Texas.

A certain amount of people are charged tuition, but if someone comes from out of state, they are sometimes charged three times the tuition because you don’t live in the state, and the main requirement is to be in the state in order to be charged in order.

Also, when it says in-state tuition, it means you have one year of living in the state of Texas.

After one year of living in Texas, the student can pay less than other students living in the entire state of Texas.

Foundation Communities

In recent weeks we have had the pleasure of welcoming guests from the organization Foundation communities and they offer a lot of services to the community in general but also to the immigrant community, because all of their programs also offer help in Spanish and they have a lot of outreach programs and maybe our guest Jaime can tell us a little bit about that, but it’s worth noting that they offer housing services to people.

Scholarships and many things we have in the Lincoln-Goldfinch Law office we have a lot of confidence in Foundation Communities and we send a lot of our clients to them, because they are very good, and that’s why we invited Jaime, to talk about how they can serve or assist the immigrant community at the universities.

Undocumented College Programs

For those who don’t know, our administrator Fidel Campusano studied in school with these programs that we will mention today.

Fidel tells us: ”You mean a program like Foundation Communities? Well yes, I actually had a scholarship with them, so they were helping me during that time.

It was almost ten years ago but one of them was helping me because actually being undocumented you have to do more things, that is, there is the process, but you have to send everything on good paper.

Nowadays, I don’t know if she has changed, but she has to apply for the TASFA which is different from the FAFSA, she had to send it all by paper, by mail.”

Between universities, they were a different system, so it’s a complicated process when you’re applying as an undocumented person, but thanks to God and the fighters, the activists, they were able to pass this law that allows us to go and pay in-state tuition before international tuition, which sometimes can be up to three times more expensive to go to college than international tuition, but there were programs there like the one Jaime works with to help me a little more.

We at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law know how difficult it can be for our immigrant community to have access to education, because the work that the parents who are paying for these schools generally have, or the person who wants to be doing this study to improve his or her life, is going to be having an undocumented job where he or she will be in a different salary and time of results than a person who already has some legal status in the country to earn and be able to support these studies.

Requirements To Apply For Your Program

Our dear guest Jaime tells us: ”You simply have to contact us and give us an idea of what kind of assistance you need.

We can counsel people and get them into college, look for scholarships, look for tuition money, and help them through the process of getting into college all the way to graduation.

There are certain things you have to do at the beginning, during, and until the end, so we are here to help you.

The only requirement we do have for Foundation Communities is that the programs that are called advertise two thriving centers.

Other people need to have less than 80 percent of the area median income, which is about $75,000 for a family of four, or for example, a single person earning up to $50,000 a year or less.

In these cases, like the one in this example, the income of the student’s parents is used: someone who is under 18 who may not be working and is graduating, what income is used?

Our collaborator Jaime tells us: ”If someone is a minor, that is, usually when we are in high school, high school, we are minors until we are 18 years old and we use the family income.

If you live with your parents we are using the whole family and so one person works, or if you have two parents who are working the full income is included.”

Level Of Education To Apply

A question from the audience: In these scholarships or in these programs does one also have to have good grades 10 is to be in an outcome level?

Jaime tells us: ”Yes, what happens is that it depends on what you think of the programs.

There are different requirements, but for us in the university sector by Foundation Communities we ask no more than two income requirements, the others we can help.

For a student to search for a college, information about the degrees that student has.

Sometimes we have top grades, we are in the top 5% of the students’ grades in our class and we can apply for many scholarships and apply to many universities.

And sometimes it doesn’t touch us. We have to work, and there are other things we have to worry about and sometimes the grades are not that high, but there are universities where you can apply.

There are many programs and it also depends on what the student wants to study.

So the joke is that if you want to study, there’s a way to do it here in the United States.”

Differences Between FAFSA & TASFA

Our guest and Foundation Communities member, Jaime Ayala, tells us about FAFSA and TASFA and what the difference is between these two programs.

”The financial aid application process usually one hears the term FAFSA which is a free application for students who are the U.S. born, U.S. citizens or U.S. resident students who do not have the documentation, and the federal government does not allow them to have that assistance.

Then each state can set its own rules.

In Texas we have these: for TASFA it’s one form, and as Fidel said, that paper is mailed, nowadays you can fax it depending on the university, but it’s just an application for aid from the state of Texas, and no other aid is considered in that application.

Basically, the state has money and you qualify for that help.

It’s possible they’ll give you that kind of money.”

There are many relatives who have asked me the dads and my son accepts this help, this becomes a public charge, more with the issue of public charge that was very very strong, it is from the Trump times, what does it affect? how could it affect you?

Contact Financial Experts In Austin TX

Our attorney Kate tells us: ”Nobody has to worry about receiving this kind of relief, because that’s not going to hurt an immigration case to that public charge rule we had in the last administration and we had a short time where applicants for permanent residency, they had to turn over a lot of information about their financial situation, like their debts, their income and all that.

Well, that was part of the way of the public charge during that time, but it’s all closed now for me.

We now have the public charge rule, but only what counts for an application for permanent residence.

If a person has a sponsor, it could be their family member who is asking for it, and if that person is making enough money to support the immigrant, then that ends the public charge question.

So to put it short it’s not that kind of help is never going to affect an immigration case for public office.”

Finance & Universities In The USA

We know there are always deadlines for everyone, especially with all of this, so our dear guest Jaime Ayala, will tell us a little bit about what the public should consider in terms of deadlines when applying to universities and colleges.

Is financial aid available all the time or what are the deadlines?

Foundation Communities contributor Jaime Ayala says, ”They are the most important thing.

Every year in October and First, the TAFSA and FAFSA financial aid applications open on the same date.

Every year the process is a little different because the touchpad is paper-based and a packet of information will be sent to each college.

It is a lot of information and it is sent individually.

They are copies to all colleges that are applying, and every year after that, they are acquired.

You have to renew the application every year, and October 1st is when it opens, but the most important thing other than the date it opens is the application that has to be submitted as soon as possible to the state of Texas.

It has a lot of money for students, but even though it is a lot of money, it is for all the students at various universities in the state of Texas, so each university gives their money and when it runs out, there is no more money, so you have to apply as soon as possible to reach that money since they run out every year.

Apply on October 1st and submit your application as soon as possible.

One of the requirements is to have the taxes ready.”

Where Can Foundation Communities Help?

One of the questions from the audience may be very important and excellent: Can they help all people in the entire United States or do they only have to apply and apply to Texas?

Jaime: ”At the university center we help students.

We help any student who comes to our office, and now because of the pandemic we are almost 100% virtual with exceptions in person, and hopefully, in the coming months in a new year, we will be 100% in-person and also virtual.

The only limit we have is for the student to come to our office or contact us to have a virtual session, and see how we can help them.

The people who work with us, my partners and I, are experts in financial aid and in the state of Texas, so if you don’t live in Dallas for example, and want information, we can connect virtually so we can chat about a possibility.”

A question that we get from Twitch, is the following: What is financial assistance? Is it only for full-time students?

Jaime Ayala comments: ”Currently, students can receive assistance.

It doesn’t matter what type of class they are taking, since usually in the large and state programs, they require the student to be part-time which is six credits, but depending on the scholarships and programs, it is possible to receive attendance for fewer credits.”

Another question that is also important to note is, does it impact whether or not the person has DACA or does not have DACA to apply for this financial aid?

Jaime: ”The two students that are DAKAR would have to generate the TASFA application also that on that paper they can’t fill out the federal application, so the same requirements, the two same programs, the same kind of money from the state of Texas applies to them, and there is no problem.

The only difference would be that the students who are for DACA have their social security which is the work permit that they would use instead of not putting up insurance.”

Another question they send us is the following: If I want to apply to a university elsewhere, can you help me? What if I started college years ago but dropped out because of family problems because I was deported, can you help me continue now?

Jaime tells us: ”I imagine the student would be in the United States. If we help you.

Students sometimes come with credits from another country and we connect them with different programs where they can evaluate.

Sometimes the student has to pay for the evaluation, but they are given the information that they have credit equivalent.

We live the information from the colleges and universities and it doesn’t matter if the student was 10 years ago or 10 months ago we can help the student get situated in the process of going back to school and receiving credit.

It is possible to receive credit from those who studied long ago in finding the college, the money, and the program they need.

What Is The Free Minds Program?

Jaime Ayala, an expert in financial aid, shares with us: “Free Minds is a program that we also have at the university center, and it’s a college class that they give once a year and they take six credits that are shared from ACC, and it’s an opportunity to get into the school to see if someone likes it, to see if this environment is something that interests them.

There are people who enter the program because they want to teach their children that they can also study, and there are other people who simply want to participate in learning something new and it is an opportunity to live with people, they pay the tuition, the meals are in the afternoons, the courses, and after the whole program, they get credit.

See Your Study Options In Austin TX

The College Hub at the university center, at this address our director and a colleague who was also the director of Free Minds and together they applied for a scholarship program, to see if we can start a new program.

When they submitted the application months later they told us that we had the opportunity to start this project. We started it, and it’s been almost five years since then.

Each year they apply for different types of grants, and to be able to continue to provide these services to the public.

One more question we have is the following: Good afternoon, thank you for your information, can you recommend a student in Boulder Colorado? He is an engineering student, thank you.

Our guest Jaime shares with us: ”Well, our services are also virtual, so we can connect with a student and see if there is more information we can give them.”

We can still help you file a FAFSA.

A FAFSA is for all of the United States and we can help you fill out that application, we can help you transfer or apply for different types of scholarships.

So, our assistance is usually in Texas, but if we get students from other states, we’ll help them, too.

Should I Be Afraid To Call Foundation Communities?

Our lawyer Kate tells us: “No. should not be afraid to contact them, because they have a lot of experience serving the immigrant community, including the undocumented community.

They will not report your information to immigration, everything is confidential and if you call our office, so is your access to Foundation Communities services.

It’s a good idea to contact them to get help for your future.

They don’t have to be afraid and also because sometimes these types of studies in the United States can be part of an immigration case, to prove that you have good moral character, that you have a family, that you have a good job, etc.

These are things that can help us as immigration attorneys, when someone has attended connecting services, they’re studying, they’re focusing on their future.

So don’t be afraid to share, don’t be afraid to call, don’t be afraid to use the services, so we at Lincoln-Goldfinch Law recommend it.”

If you have additional questions about college programs for immigrants, scholarships or tuition, or about your specific case, you can contact us at (855) 502-0555. After a short 10 minute evaluation of your case via telephone we will let you know what options you have. You can also follow us on our social networks so you don’t miss our weekly broadcasts via Facebook, YouTube & Twitch.