Giving Compass' Take:

· DACA student have faced many hurdles recently, but are continuing to strive forward. The Hechinger Report discusses big challenges these students face in regards to financing their education and how they are persevering through.

· DACA students face numerous financial challenges—they aren't eligible for loans or grants and many states require that they pay out-of-state tuition regardless of residency. Why are these policies in place? How do they put DACA students at a disadvantage?

· Learn more about DACA and the ways people are taking a stand to defend it.

On the day after Donald Trump was elected president, Jacob Maldonado sat in a Chipotle restaurant with his best friend, Maria Campos, and wondered aloud.

“Is it worth it?” asked Maldonado, who had been working days and studying nights to get through Trevecca Nazarene University, where both were juniors.

They knew the political winds were shifting; they might not make it to graduation before the new administration ended Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the status that protected them from deportation and gave them access to driver’s licenses and work permits that, in turn, helped make it possible for them to pay for college.

Eighteen months later, Maldonado, now 22, walked across the stage at Boone Convocation Center, where the small, private college’s graduation had been moved from the outdoors due to a steady drizzle over Nashville.

Not only have these DACA students persevered to graduate from college. As the school year comes to an end, signs have emerged that still more will enroll and many already there will stay. This despite the DACA program’s precarious future, teetering between President Donald Trump’s threats to shut it down and federal court decisions that have so far blocked him.

Among the many hurdles faced by DACA students, one of the biggest is financial. Not only are they ineligible for federal loans or grants; 32 states — including Georgia, and, most recently, Arizona — have passed laws forcing DACA students to pay higher out-of-state tuition at public universities and colleges, even if they’re in-state residents.

Read the full article about DACA students by Timothy Pratt at The Hechinger Report.