Today, she is working at a nonprofit and paying back her loan from Fundacion
She is getting her Ph.D. in education policy, evaluation, and reform at Claremont Graduate University in California, where she’s among a group of four undocumented students who support each other. “In general, a lot has changed since my days at Harvard,” she says.
In 2012, the Obama administration announced that youth who’d arrived in the United States as children could request consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which allows them to stay in the country two years at a time and to work. Free from fear of deportation, at least in the short run, an untold number of these young people are enrolling online payday OH in institutions of higher education. At the same time, on college campuses and in middle and high schools, there’s far more advocacy and support. The year after Montiel graduated, Act on a Dream, a student-run group for undocumented undergraduates and their allies, launched at Harvard College to provide information and community; it currently has about 25 members. Similar clubs and support networks are growing across the country.
But financing higher education remains a huge challenge. While a sizable number of states now offer in-state tuition to undocumented students, and some private universities are targeting them for special assistance, it’s not an easy path.
“I feel very fortunate and thankful to Harvard because it was a dream I had since I was 12,” Montiel says. “Being undocumented, that was unheard of, and I’m just very thankful for everything. But, in general, she says, many colleges and universities across the country have to make an intentional effort to make financial aid opportunities available for students, rather than just admitting them. “That,” she says “is only half the battle.”