When President Obama announced his relief plan for DREAM Act-eligible youth last month, the move was applauded as a highly necessary development in the fight to give relief to undocumented youth in the only country they call home.

One important thing Obama’s DREAM relief could not include, however, was any mechanism to help DREAMers pay their way through college.  That remains up to the individual states: While many states allow DREAMers to pay in state tuition rates, others treat them as foreign residents and force them to pay out-of-state tuition rates — an amount that can be two to four times as much.  Furthermore, DREAMers do not qualify for Pell Grants or other forms of federal financial aid, meaning that finding a way to afford college has long been a serious problem for many DREAMers.