California Dreamin’: DACA’s Decline and Undocumented College Student Enrollment in the Golden State

This is good news. 

“Our first main finding is that between 2016-17 (just prior to the partial DACA rescission) to 2022-23, newly enrolled low-income undocumented students declined by half at University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) campuses.”

That means more space for California and American students.  That also means less need for financial assistance, more resources for the students who need help.  Wonder why this information has not been made widely known.  Guess Newsom and the Democrats are embarrassed.

California Dreamin’: DACA’s Decline and Undocumented College Student Enrollment in the Golden State

Journal of College and University Law, accepted for publication in volume 50, issue 1 (2025)

52 Pages Posted:

William Kidder UCLA Civil Rights Project, Kevin R. Johnson University of California, Davis – School of Law

9/12/24  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4955086&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=UC%20student%20activists%20lose%20on%20weapons%20and%20campus%20jobs&utm_campaign=WhatMatters  

Abstract

With Congressional efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform mired in gridlock, over the past dozen years the federal effort to provide relief to undocumented young adults has been through Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.  DACA may go before the U.S. Supreme Court for the second time in 2025. There is surprisingly little concrete and comprehensive recent data on undocumented and “DACA-mented” college student enrollment patterns. 

This is the first article to report hard data on contemporary enrollment trends for undocumented college students, an era marked by increasing constrictions of DACA.  Our first main finding is that between 2016-17 (just prior to the partial DACA rescission) to 2022-23, newly enrolled low-income undocumented students declined by half at University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) campuses.  Our second main finding is that for UC and CSU low-income undocumented students overall (new and continuing students) there was a 30% decline between 2018-19 and 2022-23 (the second finding reflects a delayed impact as earlier large cohorts took time to graduate).  Our third finding is that there were not notable declines over the same period in our “control” groups—other low- and lower-middle income students at UC and CSU with similar academic profiles—which supports our inference about the causal role of DACA’s decline on decreasing undocumented student enrollments.

Section IV pivots to several ongoing areas of promising reforms and mitigation strategies that can be pursued by public universities with an interest in supporting undocumented student success.  These are strategies to consider regardless of how DACA fares in the Supreme Court.  We analyze relevant case law regarding the “Opportunity for All” campaign in the UC, which is based on the claim that public universities may lawfully employ undocumented students. We also summarize innovative public-private partnerships for scholarships and other support for undocumented students and immigrant rights. 

Declaration of Interest

William Kidder and the UCLA Civil Rights Project submitted extensive public comments on the Biden administration’s proposed DACA regulations in 2021. Kevin Johnson helped organize and draft an amicus brief challenging the lawfulness of the rescission of DACA in the 2020 U.S. Supreme Court case and he signed the support letter for the “Opportunity for All” legal memorandum in 2022 discussed in Part IV.A.

Ethics Approval

N/A

Funder Statement

Neither author has funding support (nor any ongoing financial conflicts of interest) to report in connection with completion of this research article.

Suggested Citation:

Kidder, William and Johnson, Kevin R., California Dreamin’: DACA’s Decline and Undocumented College Student Enrollment in the Golden State (September 12, 2024). Journal of College and University Law, accepted for publication in volume 50, issue 1 (2025), Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=