Donald E. Graham, a former owner of The Washington Post, has created a fund to help send “dreamers” — children who came with their parents to the U.S. without legal permission — to college, according to a story Monday by Lyndsey Layton in the Post.
Donald E. Graham has created “TheDream.US,” a $25 million fund that aims to award full-tuition college scholarships to 1,000 students in the next academic year.
“I’m not wise enough to know what is the right immigration policy for the United States of America,” said Graham, who contributed an undisclosed amount to the fund, as did his brother, Bill. “I know these students deserve a chance at higher education.”
Layton reports that Graham’s new project has gotten several grants, including one from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
That’s enough to provide $25,000 each to 1,000 dreamers in the program’s first year to attend a small group of colleges that the organization has pre-
approved. The colleges are located in New York, Texas, Florida and the District. Several are community colleges and one is online: Mount Washington College, owned by Kaplan, part of Graham’s company, Graham Holdings.
Former Post writer Jose Antonio Vargas, who is undocumented, started Define American “to start the conversation is about immigration.”
Whatever your background or beliefs, our campaign is about asking how we define what it means to be American, and elevating the conversation about how we engage as citizens.
Vargas, who just turned 30, tweeted about no longer being a dreamer on Monday.
Happy aging out of the DREAM Act to me!! #but30sarethenew20s
— Jose Antonio Vargas (@joseiswriting) February 3, 2014
