Critics argue that helping undocumented students enroll in college is not fair to students born in the United States.

"These students realize 'I can't do exactly what my friends are going to do, but I still have the same dreams as they have, and I still work as hard in school, and I still have the same GPA, and I want to do what everybody else is going to do,'" said Graig Meyer, coordinator of the program. "And so the question becomes how do we help them find the path to do that, to go on to college?"

Public schools in North Carolina cannot legally ask students about their immigration status, so the Blue Ribbon program -- which is offered through the Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system -- doesn't ask either.

"When a student starts in the program in the fourth grade, we generally don't have any idea what their immigration status is," Meyer said. "As a school district we're not legally allowed to ask about immigration status. All kids have the right to a free public education."

But by the time the students are ready to graduate from high school things change, especially for undocumented students who want to go to college.

"Their opportunities for financial aid are almost entirely limited because they're not eligible for federal financial aid, and that's how most students pay for any type of post-secondary education, whether it be a college education or a community college education," Meyer said.

College Prep

A program in Chapel Hill is preparing students for college regardless of immigrant status.

"But there are admission opportunities for students," Meyer added. "They can attend private institutions, they can attend public universities and they can attend community colleges. So we help them understand that they can go some place for college, and we want them to go, we have to figure out what's the best way for them to be able to afford it."

The Blue Ribbon program offers scholarships, and helps students find ways to pay for college. The issue of undocumented students in college has moved into the spotlight this week. Earlier Gov. Mike Easley encouraged state community colleges to continue enrolling students regardless of immigration status. But the N.C. Attorney General's office said that practice violated federal law.

According to the News & Observer, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials weighed in on the issue Friday. They said state colleges and universities are not breaking federal law if they admit undocumented students.

Rachel Mills, a mentor in the Blue Ribbon program, believes the cost of keeping undocumented students out of the classroom will add up. She said those students will likely become parents of children born in the United States.

"They're going to be born in the United States, and born to parents in extreme poverty," Mills said. "So our expenses in the long-term are going to rise. Our dropout rate is going to rise. Our pregnancy rate is going to rise, and our poverty rate is going to rise."

She added, "I do think about the ramifications of not allowing children to pursue their dreams of college."

"If we do not allow these millions of children to pursue their dreams and to have a college education, or higher education, we are creating an underclass of Latinas," she said, "and we're saying 'yes, it's okay that you do all our dirty work.'"

Not everyone supports the idea. Critics argue that helping undocumented students enroll in college is not fair to students born in the United States. But Meyers said they "just make it out to be an issue of ‘my kid doesn't get in because you let in an undocumented kid’ - I don't think that's a fair comparison."

"It just doesn't hold true in our experience that some kids are being kept out of school because space is being given to undocumented kids," Meyer said. "If you look at UNC-Chapel Hill, there's tremendous competition to go to the school in our community, and there are lots of reasons why some kids don't get into UNC. And there are a limited number of spots. But the competition isn't just between legal residents and non-legal residents. The competition is between students who are high-performing, and students who are coming because they have other ways into the university, such as a legacy student or an athlete that has lower academic performance."

Meyer said he believes "all children deserve the right to an education."

"And I see that in our schools we teach all kids the same thing. We teach them that if you work hard and you do well in school, you will be able to go to college, and you will be able to become whatever you want to be when you grow up," he said. "And that's the American dream, and so when all kids are taught the American dream and then some kids get to high school graduation and realize that entire dream isn't accessible to them, I feel like we've done an injustice to those kids."