Many college campuses either don’t track their populations of rural students.
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Up against a massive court backlog that can drag their cases for years, asylum seekers face steep costs when pursuing their dreams of college in California.
Facing a double blow: Asylum-seeking students in California often face a double blow: they are charged higher tuition for nonresidents and excluded from most financial aid. For students and their families, this can mean thousands of dollars paid out of pocket and years of financial stress as their immigration cases remain unresolved. Before establishing residency, asylum-seeking students are charged non-resident rates, which are about three times what state residents pay for public universities and roughly eight to 13 times more for community colleges, depending on the district.
Policy changes stoke uncertainty: As of February 2026, a little over 2.3 million immigrants are awaiting asylum hearings nationwide, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks federal activity. The most recent data shows California alone had about 169,000 pending asylum cases in its immigration courts by the end of 2023 — the second-largest backlog of any state. The average wait for an asylum hearing in California was 1,412 days at that time. The Trump administration paused asylum cases in November, creating even further delays. The administration has now allowed cases to resume for applicants from all but 40 countries.
Up against a massive court backlog that can drag their cases for years, asylum seekers face steep costs when pursuing their dreams of college in California.
Asylum-seeking students in California often face a double blow: they are charged higher tuition for nonresidents and excluded from most financial aid. For students and their families, this can mean thousands of dollars paid out of pocket and years of financial stress as their immigration cases remain unresolved.
Before establishing residency, asylum-seeking students are charged non-resident rates, which are about three times what state residents pay for public universities and roughly eight to 13 times more for community colleges, depending on the district.
All asylum seekers are disqualified from federal financial aid. The few who qualify for California’s state aid may never know their options, or face hurdles in obtaining it due to a patchwork of financial aid processes.
The state’s higher education systems are not mandated to track asylum seekers, making state budget impacts nearly unquantifiable during legislative attempts to expand financial aid eligibility.
“I only see them struggling,” said Eric Cline, social services program director at OASIS Legal Services, which supports LGBTQ+ asylum seekers across the Bay Area and Central Valley. “I’m always surprised (when) a few clients tell me 'I just graduated from college.’ I think, ‘Wow, how did that happen?’”
Policy changes stoke uncertainty for asylum seekers
Asylum seeking is one of the least-protected immigration statuses in the U.S. Asylum seekers, who’ve fled their home countries fearing persecution and are asking the U.S. for protection, differ from refugees, whose status is granted before they enter the country. Asylum seekers apply upon arriving in the U.S.
Applicants can stay as their cases remain pending for years, though experts say the Trump administration is expediting deportations for numerous asylum seekers and ending cases before they can receive a full hearing.
As of February 2026, a little over 2.3 million immigrants are awaiting asylum hearings nationwide, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which tracks federal activity. The most recent data shows California alone had about 169,000 pending asylum cases in its immigration courts by the end of 2023 — the second-largest backlog of any state. The average wait for an asylum hearing in California was 1,412 days at that time.
The Trump administration paused asylum cases in November, creating even further delays. The administration has now allowed cases to resume for applicants from all but 40 countries. In the San Francisco immigration court system, which is popular among asylum seekers due to higher acceptance rates, a combination of firings by the Trump administration, retirements and relocations whittled the 21 immigration judges to two, according to reporting in Mission Local. Left behind is a caseload of nearly 119,000 immigration cases, the highest of any immigration court in California.
President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” also established new fees for asylum seekers, placing additional pressure on an already low-income population. Applicants must now pay an initial $100 application fee plus $100 per year while their case is pending, $550 for a work permit, and $745 each year to renew the permit. In addition, a new rule proposed by the Department of Homeland Security would effectively end the ability of asylum seekers to obtain work permits at all.
Royce Hall on the UCLA campus
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As they await a decision, asylum seekers are excluded from federal aid and some state financial aid programs, including Cal Grants under California law.
For one asylum seeker, Carol, being ineligible for financial aid meant she had to take time off from school to work to make ends meet. CalMatters is not using her full name because she fears speaking publicly may jeopardize her asylum case.
Carol did speak before the Assembly Higher Education Committee in 2023 urging lawmakers to pass AB 888, which would have expanded Cal Grant eligibility to certain asylum seekers. The bill ultimately did not pass.
She said she arrived in the United States at 17 and had spent more than six years waiting for her case to move through immigration courts, a period during which she said she was ineligible for financial aid.
“I’ve had to delay my educational journey several times, including going part-time and even taking a semester off from school to work,” Carol told lawmakers.
Without access to aid, she said she experienced homelessness, couch surfing and at one point slept on a mattress topper on a hardwood floor because she could not afford a bed. She worked multiple jobs at a time, skipped meals and attended class without the required course materials.
Her story, she said, was not new. Carol told the committee that four years earlier her brother had testified with a nearly identical experience on behalf of a previous bill that was ultimately vetoed, a cycle she argued could have been prevented.
“Had California taken action then, I wouldn’t have had to face the harrowing experiences that I shared with you today,” she said.
Despite the barriers, Carol graduated from Cal State Long Beach and worked as a caseworker with the International Rescue Committee, helping resettle refugees and asylum seekers. She told lawmakers she hopes to pursue a law degree and become an international human rights attorney.
The narrow path to college aid for asylum-seeking students
Many asylum seekers arrive eager to continue studies they began abroad, but quickly run into what Cline calls “a brick wall."
“All of our clients are low-income … they’re almost never eligible for generalized financial aid,” he said. “When you take away the financial aid aspect, it makes (college) pretty inaccessible.”
For California residents, annual undergraduate tuition is $15,588 at the University of California, $6,838 at the California State University and about $1,380 for 30 units at a community college. Students classified as non-residents — including some asylum seekers before establishing residency — can pay $54,858 at a University of California, about $20,968 at a Cal State before campus-based fees, and roughly $10,140 to $13,560 for 30 units at a community college, depending on the district. These figures do not include campus-based fees, housing or living expenses.
Even when students do manage to establish residency, the cost is still steep. For the many asylum seekers who arrive in the United States as adults, they may not have attended a California school previously, barring them from qualifying for state financial aid.
AB 540, the 2001 law that exempts undocumented students from paying non-resident tuition, only applies if the student attended a California high school or community college for three years.
Those who qualify through AB 540 can fill out the California Dream Act Application for state financial aid, such as Cal Grants, university system-specific grants, state loans, and the state’s middle class scholarship.
The application process can still be confusing for asylum seekers whose status is not fully accounted for in the design of the application. For example, asylum seekers often have Social Security numbers for work authorization, but affirming so while answering the financial aid pre-screening questions leads to undetermined eligibility because the questions don’t take into account the nuances of applying as an asylum seeker.
Stickers and flyers on a table in the Undocumented Community Center at the College of San Mateo in San Mateo, on Nov. 28, 2023. At this center, undocumented students can access financial and legal aid as well as guidance in navigating grant applications.
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Asylum seekers often require extra help from financial aid counselors, but even counselors may not know how to help navigate eligibility rules. Students often wind up seeking help from undocumented student resource centers on public campuses, which are designed to help students who lack legal residency and those from mixed-status families find aid and academic support.
Kaveena Singh, the director of immigration legal services at the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant, which provides legal services to low-income immigrants, noted that she herself has written letters to financial aid offices to help explain the in-between nature of the few asylum-seeking students she has served.
As an asylum-seeking student in his mid-20s, L. ended up qualifying for state financial aid through AB 540. However, he misunderstood for six years exactly what aid he qualified for. L. wished to withhold his name and the names of the institutions he’s attended for fear of negative impacts on his pending asylum case.
Initially, community college didn’t cost him anything — but when he transferred to a large four-year university, the cost of college soared. He went to his university's financial aid office for help so often that all the staff there knew his name. It was a "big relief” when he was finally able to successfully fill out the California Dream Act Application, and obtain financial aid for his summer and fall quarters.
L.'s asylum case has been pending for nine years. He, his dad, mom and younger brother arrived in the United States in the winter of 2016, claiming asylum under fear of political retribution. His father organized political assemblies in China, and his mother was forced to have an abortion under the one-child policy.
“I just wish I could go home and visit family and friends and catch up for a good few weeks in the summer here and there to reconnect with my past,” L. said. “It's like there's two separate lives, like two entities being artificially cut.”
L. worked throughout high school and college, and worried about affording school.
Most days, the combination of family trauma and the limbo of waiting for his case means L. survives through “constant compartmentalization.”
In the meantime, he tries to carry on — he studies politics, and is interested in international relations and human rights.
"As rough as all that's happened, the silver lining is that one day hopefully I get a passport and a green card," L. said. "To help other people avoid such a hassle will be just as fulfilling for me."
Previous legislative efforts have failed
Legislative bills to extend state financial aid eligibility to asylum-seeking students have been introduced at least twice in recent years but have failed.
One attempt came in 2019, when Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat from El Segundo, introduced SB 296, a bill that would have extended Cal Grant eligibility to students with pending asylum applications. The measure passed the Legislature with some bipartisan support, but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said that it would "impose costs on the General Fund that must be weighed in the annual budget process."
“That was frustrating, but I understood it,” Allen told CalMatters. “The real issue is that we don’t have good data. Our schools don’t track asylum seekers, so we can’t easily calculate the cost.”
UC data on asylum-seeking students is protected due to privacy policies, according to Stett Holbrook, a UC spokesperson. The Cal State system reports it has less than 500 students with "asylum status," which includes both those who have an asylum granted and asylum seekers, according to Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith. The numbers are self-reported during the admissions process.
In spring 2025, 13,507 students self-identified as “refugee/asylee” across the California Community Colleges — up from 11,537 the prior semester — per the CCC DataMart. The data does not include a category for just asylum seekers. Students can self-identify their immigration status while applying, but asylum seekers are not specifically tracked, according to the college system’s spokesperson Melissa Villarin.
Four years after SB 296 failed, Democrat Sabrina Cervantes — then representing Riverside in the Assembly and now as a state senator — revived the proposal through AB 888, introduced in 2023. Like Allen’s earlier bill, AB 888 sought to make Cal Grants accessible to students with pending asylum applications by creating a direct eligibility pathway outside the AB 540 residency requirements. The bill passed the Assembly unanimously but was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee last September, effectively ending its chances for the year.
Cervantes declined an interview with CalMatters. “My Assembly Bill 888 would have created a new pathway for pending asylum seekers in California to apply for Cal Grant financial aid in pursuit of their higher education,” Cervantes wrote in a statement.
Newsom’s office declined to say whether he would support a future version of the proposal, pointing instead to his brief 2019 veto message.
“There’s nervousness around anything that involves new expenses," Allen said. “... We’re going to have to spend some time seeing what information we can get with regards to better data to get better estimated costs. I think that will help to better inform the conversation."
Andrea Baltodano and Chrissa Olson are contributors with the College Journalism Network, a collaboration between CalMatters and student journalists from across California. CalMatters higher education coverage is supported by a grant from the College Futures Foundation.
Destiny Torres
is LAist's general assignment reporter and brings you the top news you need for the day.
Published May 4, 2026 1:21 PM
The city of Los Angeles is hosting more than 100 World Cup watch parties at more than a dozen park sites, including MacArthur Park.
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The city of Los Angeles will host more than 100 World Cup watch parties for free this summer during the global tournament.
Officials say: L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement that the idea is for all Los Angeles residents to enjoy World Cup festivities.
Background: Los Angeles will host eight FIFA World Cup matches this summer at SoFi Stadium, including the USA’s opening match against Paraguay on June 12. Tickets to the game and others have drawn criticism for sky-high price tags.
Read on … for how to participate.
Los Angeles will host more than 100 World Cup watch parties for free this summer during the global tournament through its “Kick it in the Park” program.
The parties are scattered across the city at more than a dozen recreation centers.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement that the idea is for all Los Angeles residents to enjoy World Cup festivities.
“We are bringing the matches to every community in Los Angeles with free events that the whole family can enjoy," Bass said. "This moment belongs to all Angelenos, and we’re making sure of that."
L.A. will host eight FIFA World Cup matches this summer at SoFi Stadium, including the USA’s opening match against Paraguay on June 12. Tickets to the game and others have drawn criticism for sky-high price tags.
What to know
The city’s event series will take place throughout the duration of the World Cup tournament, between June 11 and July 19. Two to four rotating park sites will be activated on each of the match days.
Each city district could put its own spin on the event, but each watch party is guaranteed to have a big screen, soccer clinics and family fun zones.
Events will take place at 18 park sites, including MacArthur Park, Northridge Recreation Center, Echo Park Lake and more.
Attendees are recommended to bring blankets, water, snacks and sunscreen.
How do I participate?
Unlike the official FIFA Fan Fests and Fan Zones, no registration or ticket purchase is required. Up to a thousand soccer fans can show up to any watch party site with a blanket or chairs.
Metro adds three new stations to the D Line on Friday.
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LACMA, The Grove and the Beverly Center will soon be just a few stops away for many Angelenos after Metro adds three new stations to the D Line on Friday. To mark the launch, Metro will host multiple events at each station in collaboration with local businesses.
About the expansion: The extension will add new stops after the Wilshire/Western station in Koreatown, including stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega. The three stations are expected to bring in about 16,200 new daily riders to the system, according to Metro.
Read on . . . for information on a range of activities and events at each of the new stations, including farmers markets, salsa classes and coffee, during the first 90 days after the opening on May 8.
LACMA, The Grove and the Beverly Center will soon be just a few stops away for many Angelenos after Metro adds three new stations to the D Line on Friday, May 8. To mark the launch, Metro will host multiple events at each station in collaboration with local businesses.
The extension will add new stops after the Wilshire/Western station in Koreatown, including stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega.
Metro riders and visitors will be able to check out a range of activities and events at each of the new stations, including farmers markets, salsa classes and coffee, during the first 90 days after the opening on May 8.
The three stations are expected to bring in about 16,200 new daily riders to the system, according to Metro.
LACMA, The Grove and the Beverly Center will soon be just a few stops away for many Angelenos after Metro adds three new stations to the D Line on Friday. To mark the launch, Metro will host multiple events at each station in collaboration with local businesses.
Here are the events taking place after the launch:
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Robert Garrova
explores the weird and secret bits of SoCal that would excite even the most jaded Angelenos. He also covers mental health.
Published May 4, 2026 12:40 PM
Mail-in ballots in their envelopes await processing at the Los Angeles County Registrar Recorders' mail-in ballot processing center at the Pomona Fairplex in Pomona, Oct. 28, 2020.
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Keep an eye out at your mailbox: Today is the deadline for California counties to begin mailing ballots for the upcoming primary election on June 2.
Already have yours? Nice. If you’ve already received your ballot, that’s because some counties got ahead of the deadline to mail them.
Mailing in? The Secretary of State’s Office recommends voters who want to mail in their ballots do that at least one week before Election Day on June 2.
Don’t stress. We’ve got all your voting questions covered with our Voter Game Plan. Our guides have started publishing, but you can jump directly to the L.A. or O.C. guides. Check in regularly to see what’s new.
Jim Steyer accepts an award at the 2024 Shine Global Resilience Awards at Paramount Pictures Studios in Hollywood on Oct. 15, 2024.
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Tom Steyer’s arguably equally famous older brother Jim is a well known force in Sacramento working on tech regulations and protecting kids online. Does that mean he’d have an open ear in the governor’s office on a hot-button issue if Tom wins?
Who is Jim Steyer? The investor-turned-climate activist’s older brother, Jim Steyer, is CEO of the influential California nonprofit Common Sense Media, known for helping parents choose suitable media for kids and warring with the entertainment industry over violent video games. A forceful and well-respected crusader for stricter content regulations for children, Steyer has in recent years turned his attention to social media and artificial intelligence chatbots.
Why it matters: That means if Tom Steyer wins the election, the governor would be close with a prominent advocate of stricter tech laws as Democrats scramble to regulate AI. It would be a shift from current Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has sought to balance AI regulations with a desire to keep technology flourishing in California.
Read on... for more on what this could mean for tech regulation.
Long before billionaire Tom Steyer was pouring record-breaking sums into his run for California governor, the family name held significant sway in Sacramento.
The investor-turned-climate activist’s older brother, Jim Steyer, is CEO of the influential California nonprofit Common Sense Media, known for helping parents choose suitable media for kids and warring with the entertainment industry over violent video games. A forceful and well-respected crusader for stricter content regulations for children, Steyer has in recent years turned his attention to social media and artificial intelligence chatbots.
That means if Tom Steyer wins the election, the governor would be close with a prominent advocate of stricter tech laws as Democrats scramble to regulate AI. It would be a shift from current Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has sought to balance AI regulations with a desire to keep technology flourishing in California.
The Steyer relationship makes some advocates optimistic. Lawmakers and advocates for tech regulations said they expect Jim Steyer not to be shy about his policy views with his brother.
Tom Steyer, one of the Democratic leaders in the race, is running as a progressive and promising to strictly regulate industries like oil, utilities and tech. He has promoted an aggressive tech policy agenda that includes privacy and safety restrictions on AI in the workplace, collecting fees from AI data processing to pay for worker retraining and cash benefits, and requiring safety audits on social media.
In his plan, Tom Steyer cites his work with Common Sense Media, which he says he “helped (his) brother Jim Steyer found and build.”
“After watching the experiment that social media companies ran on our children, I know we cannot let the same thing happen with AI,” his tech policy plan states. “As governor, I will do everything in my power to keep California’s kids safe and prepare them for the AI era.”
A greater say on tech policy?
Tech industry advocates are wary. Common Sense and Big Tech have recently clashed over age limits and industry liability over harmful content, though they have also collaborated on promoting tech education and equitable internet access.
“Certainly Jim Steyer and Common Sense Media will have a greater say,” said Peter Leroe-Munoz, a senior vice president at the business group Bay Area Council. “Common Sense Media would have an outsized influence on California tech policy if Mr. Steyer ends up becoming the governor.”
The council’s membership includes Meta, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI.
The industry balks at the proposal, in part because it would require tech companies to collect mass amounts of user age data, Leroe-Munoz said.
Jim Steyer speaks at the Common Sense Summit on Kids and Families 2025 in San Francisco on March 25, 2025.
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Tom Steyer told CalMatters last week that he hasn’t spoken with his brother about social media and AI policy. He also said he doesn’t have an opinion on two bills inspired by Common Sense and OpenAIthis year to more strictly regulate how chatbots interact with minors.
Asked if the relationship with his brother would influence his tech policy, he said he trusts Jim Steyer’s expertise but would not “slavishly follow what my brother says.”
“My brother’s been protecting kids for 50 years and I listen to him, but it’s not like he’s suddenly going to become me,” he said. “I don’t think it is a conflict of interest for him to try and do his job and for me to try and do my job.”
Jim Steyer did not respond to repeated interview requests sent to a Common Sense Media representative. The nonprofit’s spokesperson, Edda Collins Coleman, wrote in an email that while “Jim strongly supports his brother in his personal capacity,” the nonprofit “does not get involved in electoral politics.”
Strange bedfellows
Jim Steyer has praised his younger brother’s candidacy, writing on X after a televised debate last month that Tom Steyer is “the fighter that California needs right now.” He also helped his brother campaign during a short-lived presidential run in 2020.
Jim Steyer founded Common Sense Media in 2003 as a service to rate movies, TV shows, websites and digital content to help parents evaluate their age-appropriateness. Tom Steyer is a member of the board of advisers, and he and his wife Kat have given the nonprofit at least $5 million over the years.
In 2005, the organization pushed hard for a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children without parental consent. The law was later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.
The organization soon turned toward tech and social media, becoming one of Sacramento’s most influential voices on digital safety for kids and regularly testifying in legislative committee hearings. In 2016, as Common Sense sought to build political clout on children’s issues, Jim Steyer told the San Francisco Chronicle it had “nothing to do with my brother’s political career.” The nonprofit has supported dozens of proposed regulations in the past few years, including a major privacy law passed in 2018 that allows users and customers to have businesses delete personal data collected about them.
Now, Common Sense regularly publishes studies of the effects of social media and AI on child mental health. It also reviews AI tools for parents, rating how they handle young users who express suicidal thoughts or encourage kids to develop healthy human relationships.
Last fall, Newsom vetoed a Common Sense bill that would have created an effective ban on AI chatbots for minors. Lawmakers passed the measure in the wake of a rash of reports of teenagers dying by suicide after developing relationships with ChatGPT, which is made by OpenAI. Some parents, in lawsuits, have alleged that the chatbot encouraged or coached children to harm themselves.
Jim Steyer moved to put a restrictive chatbot measure on the statewide ballot; OpenAI planned to pursue a counter-measure that essentially reflected current law. The pair surprised other regulation advocates in January when they announced they were partnering on a joint ballot measure instead.
Jim Steyer recently drew criticism from fellow advocates when Politico reported that Common Sense was seeking financial support from OpenAI and other companies to form an AI safety institute. Critics worry the partnership would allow the industry to audit itself — especially concerning since many advocates already believed the compromise ballot measure doesn't go far enough.
“Jim might have a harder audience with Tom than another governor.”
— Jamie Court, president of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, on Jim Steyer’s pull if his brother is elected governor
The discussion has mostly moved to the state Legislature, where lawmakers are advancing two bills based on the compromise measure. They would require tech companies to verify the ages of their users and redesign their platforms to prevent chatbots from encouraging harmful behavior and delivering the sycophantic responses that alarm children’s advocates.
“Children and younger people, they don’t have the ability in the same ways as adults to differentiate between human and quasi-human relationships with these types of technologies,” said bill author Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who used to work at Common Sense Media.
The legislation also requires third-party audits of chatbot safety, which Wicks said the tech industry opposes.
Neither Coleman of Common Sense Media nor a representative for OpenAI responded to inquiries about the potential safety institute.
“We will be as rigorous and honest as ever in evaluating tech products that pose harms to kids and teens and young people’s educational and cognitive development,” Coleman wrote in a statement. “We have long supported third-party child safety audits, which much of the industry opposes.”
Jamie Court, president of the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, has worked with both Steyers on policy and is among those who want more stringent restrictions on tech platforms. He said it “bothers” him that Common Sense, the most powerful advocate on tech policy in Sacramento, may partner with the industry, but he doesn’t begrudge Jim Steyer.
“Jim might have a harder audience with Tom than another governor” on tech policy, Court joked. “Jim’s a little bit more accommodating to the companies because he has to work with them. Tom shoots more from the hip. Tom might be a little more radical.”
