One question took Joel Maurer, the assistant dean of admissions for the College of Human Medicine, by surprise at a college admissions talk back in 2013, and it’s something he still ponders today.
“Does your medical school consider applications from undocumented students?”
At the Steering Committee meeting Tuesday afternoon, Maurer spoke on this issue to begin a dialogue at an institutional level.
“It had never really crossed my mind that in higher education that there were colleges and universities that were actively educating non-citizens of this country, yet were living here (and) were raised here in this country,” Maurer said.
He said he wasn’t sure where to begin after he spent a great deal of time educating himself on this issue but he recognized this wasn’t something individual colleges could handle on their own. It had to be dealt with at a university level.
Maurer studied the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an executive program spearheaded by the Obama administration after the failure to pass the DREAM Act. DACA states undocumented immigrants who arrive in America before they turn 16 can apply for a two-year renewable work permit and an exemption from deportation.
Eight universities in Michigan are considered DACA-friendly, according to a report titled “DREAMers of Medicine,” put out by MSU’s Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. Three more universities offer in-state tuition to undocumented residents who meet Michigan residency requirements.
MSU isn’t on either of those lists. In Michigan alone, there is estimated to be about 15,000 who could qualify or are already enrolled for DACA, Maurer said.
Maurer said one of the biggest challenges undocumented students face is that it becomes incredibly difficult to pay for school and especially to receive student aid.
He also brought up the issue of students not knowing they weren’t residents because they were brought here at such a young age. June Youatt, MSU provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, also commented on this.
“We‘ve actually had students who didn’t know they were undocumented until they applied for financial aid,” she said.
The Steering Committee took no immediate action Tuesday, but did recognize this as an important issue to be discussed later, probably at a meeting in August.
Maurer said he and the College of Human Medicine would lend its help if the university decided to act to help students who could potentially be contributing members of society, asking “how can we start to limit those inherent obstacles so that their dreams can come true?”
