Funded research

Emily K. Greenman, Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University

The Influence of Legal Status on Educational Transitions among Mexican Immigrant Youth: Empirical Patterns and Policy Implications

Description

About 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools each year, the majority of whom are from Mexico.  An unknown additional number drop out before reaching high school graduation.  Yet almost nothing is known about how undocumented status affects these students’ educational attainment.  This project will help policymakers evaluate policies governing access to education for undocumented students by assessing the relationship between legal status and the educational attainment of Mexican immigrant youth.  Educational attainment, in turn, is a critical determinant of whether the children of Mexican immigrants will succeed in leaving behind the high poverty rates suffered by their parents.

While undocumented students have a legal right to K-12 education, they face significant barriers to college attendance due to policies limiting admission and financial aid for undocumented students. Qualitative evidence indicates that perception of such barriers also affects these students' decisions about high school completion. The time around the transition from high school to college thus represents a critical juncture at which legal status may exert a decisive influence on students' educational attainment. This project focuses on the effect of legal status on students' persistence in education around this critical juncture. It will provide the first quantitative assessment of the influence of legal status on Mexican immigrant students' high school graduation and college enrollment rates.

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