What are your thoughts about immigration? Does that even run through your mind? How could it affect you in a positive way? All these questions lead to one of the issues I think the government should focus on is Education and undocumented students. That’s because these students are the future. To be more specific the citizens and government should pay more attention to the Dream Act. The type of people that really want the Dream Act to happen are undocumented students who are on the right path who want to make something of themselves. But, there are things stopping them to be able to achieve this goal.

As shown many of these undocumented students have been trying hard to be able to make something of them. As research has shown most of the undocumented students are valedictorians, honor students, award winners, class presidents, and student leaders (5). Around 50-65,000 undocumented students graduate from American High Schools. (1) These students have been in the U.S. for more than five years. The problem is that it’s harder for these students to continue with their education, because of many reasons. For example, financial aid and tuition too high. (4)

The issue with financial aid and undocumented students is that there is a law that prohibits illegal aliens from receiving in-state tuition rates at public institutions of higher education. (4) Also, these undocumented students may not obtain state scholarships they have rightfully earned. (2) This law has been around since 1996, but enforced more these past couple of years. Tuition for undocumented students is different; they will have to pay double than how it ordinarily costs. Meaning they’ll only be able to take around 2-3 classes per year. (1) Some students are actually taking college classes because they want to continue with their education, even if it’s costing them double.

If the Dream Act where to be passed as a law many students wouldn’t be having this problem. With the Dream Act, students would be able to accept scholarships they rightfully earned. Without any inconvenience of being documented or undocumented. From there they could go onto college life or even a University. Now if they do one of the two from there they could pursue a career. Which can help the United States economically.

Probably the reason why citizens aren’t paying much attention to the Dream Act is because of taxes. Many citizens think that these undocumented students parents aren’t paying taxes. This could lead to citizens thinking they are the one’s paying for the education of the undocumented students. (5) But, in reality the citizens should realize that it’s not only them paying taxes, many undocumented parents are paying taxes and getting nothing in return most of the time. (2)

In conclusion, the Dream Act should really be paid attention to. The reason is because of how it can really benefit the United States. Immigrants can help the United States economically in many ways. These ways are by the teacher and nursing job shortage could be filled up. Possibly there could be a chance that the ratings of dropouts could change. This can happen by students not giving up hope anymore. Now, if the citizens have a problem with job shortage, think about it this way; the more people there are, the more workers needed. So as you can see, these students making something of themselves can really help the United States!