Supporting displaced students in US higher education: examining institutional policy and practice

ABSTRACT

Despite welcoming millions of displaced individuals over the past 50 years, there is limited policy consideration of US higher education access for displaced learners. This study threads together Critical Race Theory and racialized organization theory to examine institutional websites and key administrator interviews to consider institutional policies and practices centering on displaced learners – refugees, asylees, and Temporary Protected Status holders – in public higher education institutions in Houston, Texas, and Sacramento, California. The findings capture how the essentialization of marginalized populations – through a lack of engagement with displaced learners and limited data on displaced populations – obscures the unique needs of these individuals. Additionally, the findings point to how institutions work to center displaced students, despite policy voids. These findings expand the literature on displaced learner access to US higher education beyond students to focus on the role of institutions, providing a foundation for considering more equitable institutional policy and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher Education
• refugees
• critical race theory
• racialized organizations

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act, repealed national-origin quotas which had served as a tool to advance primarily European immigrants and established immigration caps for both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, extending access to immigration (Chishti, Hipsman, and Ball 2015).

2. The Refugee Act of 1980 shifted refugee admissions from an ad hoc process to a formalized refugee admission system with the establishment of definition of refugee, admissions ceilings, and formalizing the relationship between U.S. Congress and the presidential administration.

3. Public higher education institutions in the U.S. offer differing tuition prices based on residency. A student who meets the residency requirement of the state receives in-state tuition, which on average, is $8,000 less that out-of-state tuition costs.

4. The IRB approval was obtained through Boston College.