College-bound students fear “outing” undocumented parents on the FAFSA financial aid form

A few days before winter break, Lynda McGee, a college counselor at Downtown Magnets High School in Los Angeles Unified, got an unexpected visit from a student’s father.

The man, a warehouse worker who emigrated from Guatemala 28 years ago, wanted to make sure McGee knew his wishes firsthand.

“My daughter going to college is more important than my risk of deportation,” he said in Spanish as the student, a high school senior, translated.

He insisted that McGee help the teenager, an American-born citizen, fill out the FAFSA or Free application for federal student aidwhich is used by college bound students to calculate all important financial aid packages. But the application asks for parents’ CPR numbers, which the father does not have because he is not a legal resident. A missing number could be a red flag about the father’s immigration status ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to track down and deport undocumented immigrants.

“Unfortunately, I have dozens of students in the same situation,” McGee said. “They have to choose between their future and their parents’.”

Submitting financial aid forms this college application season has become a potentially life-changing family decision for California high school seniors with undocumented parents — a difficulty many college students also face because FAFSA forms generally must be submitted annually to determine ongoing aid .

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The Department of Education, which administers the FAFSA, which is used to calculate Pell Grants, federal loans and other student aid, typically does not share immigration status data with other government agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But college counselors and financial aid advocacy groups have recently told students from mixed-status families, many of whom have lower incomes and could benefit most from federal aid, that risk remains.

A recent announcement from National College Attainment Networka nonprofit student advocacy organization, noted that the Higher Education Act “prohibits the use of data for purposes other than determining and awarding federal financial aid.” But it said it “cannot assure mixed-status students and families that data submitted to the U.S. Department of Education as part of the FAFSA process will continue to be protected.”

Daisy Gonzales, executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, the state agency responsible for administering financial aid programs, similarly urged caution.

“We can’t speculate on what the next federal administration might do,” she said.

The anxiety over federal financial aid comes after more than a year of complications involving the FAFSA, which is typically released each October. An abbreviated version of the 2023-24 FAFSA was supposed to streamline the process, but instead left room for errors, data entry problems and delays amid mounting frustrations for students and families who had to wait to apply. The Government Accountability Office said the failure led to a 9% drop in first time submissions for the last academic year.

A tracker from the National College Attainment Network also shows one 9.6% decrease in applications up to and including December compared to the same time last academic year. It’s unclear how much of that can be attributed to concerns over disclosure of immigration status.

In California, about 3.3 million people live in mixed-status households, according to the USC’s Equity Research Institute. About 1 in 5 are children under 18, like the student whose father came to McGee’s office at Downtown Magnets High School.

One of the top students in his class, the student lives with his parents in Koreatown and dreams of one day working in the film industry. She has applied to UCLA, Stanford, Cornell and several Cal State campuses. But she has paused filing the FAFSA because of fears it could harm her family.

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“Why does Trump being elected mean that I might have to suffer as a citizen for my parents’ choice to move to a better life in America?” said the student, who requested that her name be withheld to avoid identifying her parents.

Her father sees things differently. “Filling out the FAFSA may or may not hurt me. But if it can help her, she should do it,” he said in an interview.

Trump has promised to start deporting millions of undocumented immigrants on “Day One” of his presidency. In a recent NBC interviewhe said U.S. citizens from mixed-status households could also join their relatives to avoid “breaking up families.”

The statements, combined with campaign promises of deportation, have caused widespread distress.

Read more:Top Trump adviser warns California cities not to block immigration enforcement

Gonzales said information submitted via the FAFSA “may be shared across federal agencies, including federal immigration enforcement.”

She also noted that the California Dream Act Application is available to students from mixed-status families who need help from the state, such as Cal Grants, to attend the University of California, Cal State and in-state community colleges.

But that application doesn’t give students the breadth of cash, including work-study aid, that comes from federal aid, Los Angeles-area high school counselors explained.

“The best way to get the most help is to apply for everything a student is eligible for,” said Jacqueline Villatoro, a college counselor at Linda Marquez High School in Huntington Park, whose students include several U.S. citizens with undocumented parents .

“But Trump’s election has thrown a wrench in things,” she said. “How do we give our families accurate information but also avoid creating fear? Many of us are just in a wait-and-see mode.”

“Some parents say they’re filing taxes anyway, so the government already has the information about their immigration status and they want their kids to apply for aid,” Villatoro said. “Others come to us and are afraid.”

Federal financial aid is not available to students without US citizenship or other government permission to reside in the United States. Although the FAFSA does not explicitly ask for the immigration status of students’ parents or guardians, those without Social Security numbers must go through extra steps in the application.

California colleges and universities generally recommend that students apply for state and federal aid by March 2.

It gives parents and students 41 days after Trump’s inauguration to consider whether and how immigration enforcement might affect their families.

“It’s a waiting game that’s anxiety-inducing,” said another student at Downtown Magnets High School, a senior applying to UC and Cal State campuses, as well as Wellesley College.

The student, a U.S. citizen, requested that her name be withheld to avoid identifying her mother and father, who are undocumented immigrants from Puebla, Mexico. She aspires to become a neonatal nurse.

“It’s already a stressful process navigating how to get into college and how to pay for it as a first-generation college student who’s pretty much doing all of this on her own,” she said. “But with this FAFSA confusion and wait, it feels like my wings are being clipped.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.