Story by Julianne Akers

“Nashville Scene” Columnist

In the wake of new Tennessee legislation that aims to crack down on immigration alongside efforts by the federal government, immigrant families with students — from kindergarten to college — worry about what this means for their children’s education.

At least one proposed bill in the Tennessee General Assembly would limit undocumented students’ access to education. The measure (House Bill 793/Senate Bill 836) would prohibit undocumented students from attending public schools and could create a challenge to Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that entitled all children to public education regardless of immigration status.

The recent school voucher legislation pushed by Gov. Bill Lee and passed by Tennessee lawmakers also prohibits undocumented students from benefiting from the program.

While there is no recorded data for how many undocumented students are enrolled in Metro Nashville Public Schools, a 2024 report from nonprofit advocacy group Education Trust in Tennessee shows that 28 percent of students are English language learners. That’s the highest concentration among all Tennessee school districts.

Hurdles in education access aren’t limited to K-12 education. At the college level, undocumented students in Tennessee are not eligible for federal or state grants or loans — being treated financially as an international student — regardless of how long they have lived in the state.

“Even if a student has lived here since they were 2 years old or 2 months old, because of that immigration status, they are charged triple in some cases what in-state students are able to pay for college,” says Raquel Oluyemo, executive director of Equal Chance for Education, a Nashville-based nonprofit that provides Tennessee’s undocumented students with college scholarships and mentorship resources. “It’s really created an insurmountable barrier, because not only is the cost of education higher, but often those students’ families are foreclosed from different work opportunities that would allow families to step in in the way that American students have that family support.”

Oluyemo notes that these students’ citizenship status is not the only barrier they face, and providing them with support and resources gears them up for college and the workforce.

“Not only are our students different in that they have a unique immigration status, but often they’re the first in their families to attend college, and that can be very frightening,” she says. “So we try to build a community of other first-time college students so that the younger students are able to access resources and build their career-readiness skills.”