Connecting with Community - Casa De Maryland

Casa De Maryland DREAM Act Rally

To begin our community partnership efforts to learn more about the undocumented Latina/o student population, we contacted Casa de Maryland, a large community based organization that has worked tirelessly with youth in the area to push for immigration reform and the Maryland DREAM Act. The Maryland Dream Act (SB167) was enacted in April 2012, and allows undocumented immigrant students to pay in-state tuition rates at public institutions of higher education, if they meet certain requirements.  We met with Rommel Sandino, Community Youth Organizer, who informed us that Casa has a very active youth group that meets regularly to organize political efforts to advocate and inform the community about the Maryland DREAM Act.  We also learned that due to the passage of the Maryland Dream Act there were some unintended consequences for Prince George’s Community College students who were originally receiving in-state tuition and now are not due to the specific limitations of the policy.  The law does apply to all 24 jurisdictions within the state of Maryland—every county in the state of Maryland, plus the city of Baltimore.

According to the Maryland Dream Act, in order to qualify for in-state tuition rates, undocumented students must enroll in a community college no later than four years after graduating from a Maryland high school (or GED equivalent) and they would only be allowed to enroll in a public senior higher education institution (i.e., the University of Maryland) after they have earned at least 60 credits at a community college. Only undocumented students who enroll in a Maryland community college after 2011 are eligible for the Maryland Dream Act benefits.

      

 The information we gathered then made us wonder what is the community college’s role in informing students of this policy, and who in the community college puts together this infrastructure to implement the Maryland Dream Act? Montgomery County Community College, for instance, has a detailed FAQ website of the admissions, registration, eligibility requirements for this student population, as well as the efforts they are taking to inform students.

We hope to learn more about Casa’s youth organizing group in the near future, and possibly elicit support for our study. Stay tuned to what else we will do to collaborate with Casa de Maryland, and who else we partner with throughout the study.