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California announced yesterday that it has opened the California Dream Act Application (CADAA) to students with undocumented parents as an alternative to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FASFA).
The CADAA is normally reserved for “dreamers,” undocumented students brought to the U.S. when they were under 16. But students with undocumented parents or guardians have been struggling to fill out the new FAFSA since January, grappling with persistent technical glitches and frustrated by the Education Department’s convoluted workarounds.
State officials emphasized that students from mixed-status families should still fill out the FAFSA if they want to qualify for federal aid, and encouraged them to at least attempt to complete it before turning to the CADAA. But filling out the CADAA will now make them eligible for state grants and scholarships at public colleges, which both normally require FAFSA completion for citizens. California pushed back its application deadline for state financial aid from April 2 to May 2, but even the extended deadline is fast approaching.
FAFSA completion rates are down by 40 percent nationwide, and California has the second largest decline of any state in the country. That may be due to its large mixed-status family population of nearly 4.3 million, about 11 percent of the state’s total population.
