Shaping the DREAM: Law as Policy Defining Undocumented Students’ Educational Attainment

Abstract

In this two-paper dissertation, I examine U.S. Census data from the Current Population Survey Merged Outgoing Rotating Groups to understand how undocumented-student high-school-diploma, college-enrollment, associate’s-degree, and bachelor’s-degree attainment odds have been impacted by the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), which restricted in-state-tuition subsidies to undocumented students, and by in-state-residency-tuition (ISRT) laws that states have passed beginning in 2001, to moderate the effect of IIRIRA. I use difference-in-difference estimation strategies to attempt to establish causal effects. Using Mexican foreign-born-non-citizen status as a proxy for undocumented status, and therefore the treatment group, I compare enrollment and degree-completion outcomes for college-aged likely undocumented persons before and after the laws’ effective dates, treating the laws as an exogenous shock, with similarly situated documented persons as a control group. I find that IIRIRA led to sharp declines in educational attainment among likely undocumented youth, and that ISRT has been helpful, but alone insufficient to cure the harms caused by IIRIRA. Using a blended framework that uses liminal legality to understand the college choices of undocumented youth, I conclude, after Abrego and Gonzales (2010) and others that undocumented residency status as administered by IIRIRA converges over time to be a master status that makes the cost of attending college prohibitive while nearly eliminating any benefits. My research has implications for the continuing debate over the proposed Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, the Obama administration’s Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the education of undocumented students and the legal treatment and incorporation of undocumented people into U.S. society.