Mark Zuckerberg Invests In Undocumented College Students’ Futures

Image via Flickr user Edward Kimmel

If you’re one of 65,000 undocumented high school graduates here in America, going to college can often feel impossibly hard. While some funding is occasionally available by the state, most undocumented students aren’t eligible for the federal grants, loans, or work-studies needed to graduate college. That’s why Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, recently decided that they would donate $5 million to help fund college scholarships for undocumented students in the San Francisco Bay area.

Zuckerberg will be donating to TheDream.US, organized just last year by a bipartisan team of politicians, activists, and publishers. The organization’s goal is to fund struggling undocumented students across the nation, and in just a short while, has already raised $81 million and helped send close to 1,000 students to college. Each student, who must have filed for legal status, has the opportunity to earn as much as $25,000 to attend college. TheDream.US is the nation’s largest fund for undocumented students.

Image via Wikimedia

Zuckerberg has long expressed interest in helping underserved students, although his last effort to transform the Newark schools was critiqued by many journalists and professionals in the field. Still, Zuckerberg appears to have tapped into a real need here. In the next five years, Zuckerberg will help fund college scholarships for over 400 students. As states have started to pass their own DREAM Acts, Zuckerberg’s actions are a symbolic leap forward towards national change.

(Via: The Wall Street Journal)