There are many ways that the U.S. immigration system isn’t working, and one glaring failure is its treatment of Dreamers, undocumented young people who were brought to this country as children. Given our polarized political environment, Dreamers face persistent uncertainty about whether they will be allowed to remain in the U.S. — which for many is the only home they’ve ever known. Along with their shaky immigration status, Dreamers who want to go to college face a major hurdle: they are ineligible for federal financial aid, and finding affordable loans — for graduate education in particular — is difficult.
The California Wellness Foundation hopes to help some of the 343,000 Dreamers in California— 29% of the nation’s total — by investing $1 million in a unique impact investment fund, the Dreamers Graduate Loan Program.
Cal Wellness joins a number of funders that have stepped up to support Dreamers and other immigrants over the years, as IP has reported. Some support undergraduate loans for Dreamers by funding TheDream.US, which was co-founded by Donald Graham, whose family published the Washington Post. The organization has won support from mega-philanthropies, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Scott (pre-divorce), the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Ford Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies and others.
TheDream.US website outlines the challenges Dreamers face when it comes to paying for undergraduate studies: “[Dreamers] have NO access to Pell Grants. NO federal education loans. NO federal work study. Many face paying out-of-state tuition in their home states.”
To date, there have been even fewer financing options for Dreamers who wish to earn a graduate degree. “For graduate education, there really aren’t any programs that provide low-interest loans, and government, federally financed loans are not available to Dreamers,” said Cal Wellness Program Director Jeff Kim. “That leaves folks trying to pursue their dreams no choice but to tap into their savings, if they have any, or to get money from their parents, who probably don’t have a lot to spare, or to turn to unsavory lenders.”
To fill that gap, TheDream.US teamed up with Social Finance, a national impact finance and advisory nonprofit, to create the new Dreamers Graduate Loan Program. The program, first launched as a pilot last year, will provide low-interest-rate loans; participants will also receive financial education and ongoing support. Cal Wellness was the graduate loan program’s first program-related investor.
Diversifying the healthcare system
Helping Dreamers pay for a graduate degree may seem like an unlikely cause for a health foundation, but for Cal Wellness, healthcare extends far beyond the walls of the physician’s office. The organization supports a wide variety of programs that address social determinants of health, from gun violence prevention to racial justice, as IP has reported.
The $1 million impact investment in the Dreamers Graduate Loan Program is part of a $17.8 million round of grants and impact investments to advance health equity, recently announced by the foundation. Grants include funds to support power-building in Native American communities, boost health access and equity in immigrant communities, and diversify the healthcare system.
Cal Wellness considers promoting education access and creating a healthcare system that looks more like the population it serves as central to its mission. The Dreamers Graduate Loan Program will provide 200 to 300 loans annually and “8% of those loans will go to California Dreamers pursuing health-related degrees,” according to the Cal Wellness announcement.
“As a health funder, we prioritize what we call ‘diversifying the health professions,’” said Jeff Kim. He points out that members of the Latino community, including Dreamers, are poorly represented in the healthcare professions in California, given their high numbers in the state. The state’s medical schools, in particular, have failed to enroll a proportionate number of Latino students. Kim points to a 2019 study by UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute that cites research showing that “In California, medical schools admit and graduate so few Latino students that they will take 500 years to graduate enough Latino physicians to make up the Latino physician shortage for 2015.” (The institute is a Cal Wellness grantee).
“Training for physicians’ assistants, nurses, dentists, doctors — these programs are expensive,” Kim said. “We want to be part of the solution to make it as doable as possible for folks, so if they’ve got the talent and skills and the interests, which are the most important things, limited financing opportunities won’t get in the way.”
As Lori A. Cox, vice president of programs, put it, “For young people pursuing medical education or graduate degrees in other fields, cost is frequently a systemic barrier.… Cal Wellness will continue to prioritize grants and program-related investments that help overcome these barriers that stand in the way of equity.”
“I can’t believe I’m here”
Dreamers face a precarious future in the U.S., even though for many, deportation would mean leaving behind family and community and full lives they’ve created here to return to a place they don’t remember. Approximately 600,000 Dreamers won temporary protection from deportation under the executive order called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, passed by President Barack Obama in 2012. As president, Donald Trump tried and failed to end DACA, but this October, a federal appeals court panel ruled that the program is illegal. For now, those already enrolled will retain their status, but the Biden administration cannot add new DACA enrollees (hundreds of thousands more young people are eligible).
Advocates are pushing for permanent protection and a path to citizenship for immigrant youth, and many headed to Washington this week for a “Week of Action” to demand that Congress take legislative action during the lame duck session, which some fear could be the last chance to save the program. According to a Politico report, “As DACA recipients remain in legal limbo, advocates and legal experts warn the program is likely headed to the Supreme Court, where the conservative bench seems likely to rule it illegal.”
Despite their uncertain status, many Dreamers are determined to get an education and build a career, and the Dreamers Graduate Loan Program aims to help them by providing cheaper and safer financing options. Cal Wellness was an early investor, and Kim is hoping the foundation’s initial backing will encourage other funders to jump in, too.
For Homero Coss, the loan program means a path to the future. Coss had always dreamed of becoming a doctor, but paying for it was far out of reach. After graduating from college, he was teaching science and trying to save money. When he heard about the program, he quickly applied, and is now in his first year of medical school at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. As Coss told Forbes, “Every day I wake up and I can’t believe I’m here.”