Low-income Mexican students living near the US border can now cross over and attend certain community colleges in California at in-state tuition rates under a new law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The legislation, signed by the Democratic governor on Friday, applies to low-income Mexican residents who live within 45 miles of the California-Mexico border and want to attend one of the participating community colleges in the southern part of the Golden State.
Students involved in the pilot program, which is set to kick off next year and run until 2029, have to either be US or Mexican citizens with a required visa.
The current average California community college tuition per year is $1,246 for in-state students and $6,603 for those from out-of-state.
The new law making college costs considerably cheaper for Mexico residents will help make education more accessible for those low-income students and prepare them for jobs, California State Assemblymember David Alvarez, who authored the proposal, said.
“There are students who might actually be U.S. citizens but happen to be living in the Baja region because of the cost of living,” Alvarez told the Los Angeles Times.
“So there are some students who find themselves in that situation who don’t have a California residence because families can’t afford to live here.”
Currently, about 7,000 students cross the California-Mexico border each day, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Mark Sanchez, who is president of the Southwestern College in Chula Vista, Calif. — about seven miles from the Mexico border, said many of his students split their time between the two countries.
“Without this pilot, we risk everything in terms of loss of talent,” he said.
Under the legislation, community college boards will have to submit a report to lawmakers by 2028 to show attendance rates and the demographics of students involved in the program.
Separately, Newsom on Friday also signed a new law raising the minimum wage for healthcare workers to $25 per hour over the next decade.
The new law is the second minimum wage increase Newsom has signed after he approved legislation to raise the minimum pay for fast food workers to $20 per hour.
The latest move was somewhat unexpected given Newsom’s administration had previously expressed concerns about the bill because of how it would impact the state’s struggling budget.
California’s Medicaid program is a major source of revenue for many hospitals.
Newsom’s administration had warned the wage increase would have caused the state to hike its Medicaid payments to hospitals by billions of dollars.
With Post wires