College program faces funding challenges

“It feels like a punch in the face,” Madrigal said of the recent defunding of the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) at OSU, a student support program that helped significantly fund her freshman year there.

Once she graduated, Madrigal worked part-time for OSU’s High School Equivalency Program (HEP) for students with agricultural backgrounds. Some HEP programs have also lost funding (see related story).

Madrigal, a 2019 graduate of The Dalles High School, said, “I remember receiving my acceptance letter from OSU, and my dad — he looked like he wanted to cry. He looked super ashamed for the first time in my life, and he said, ‘I can’t afford this.’ I said, ‘I’m going to apply for scholarships, I’m going to apply for everything I can.’

“As a first-generation student there’s so much pressure on you to go to college,” she continued.

With tutoring, funding via work-study internships, and peer mentoring, CAMP can give those first-generation students a boost. The program, which began in 1972, provides funding to colleges and nonprofits to help them recruit and support the children of migrant farmworkers and fishermen through their first year of college. CAMP students are required to be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.

More than 8,000 students nationwide were slated to participate in the CAMP and HEP programs this fall, according to the National HEP CAMP Association.

“Opportunities for us to succeed are being stripped away,” Madrigal said.

The association, representing the 116 HEP and CAMP programs nationwide, sued the U.S. Department of Education in August, seeking to make the agency release the $52 million that Congress had already appropriated for the 2025-26 school year, which would normally have been released on July 1.

That litigation saw a major breakthrough on Sept. 15, when the Department of Education agreed to release funding for 73 HEP and CAMP programs, including OSU’s HEP and OSU’s CAMP Alliance Program. The OSU CAMP Alliance Program funds 12 student slots each at three community colleges, including Columbia Gorge Community College (CGCC).

The litigation has succeeded in that the full $52 million earmarked for the program for this school year is in the process of being distributed, said Greg Contreras, who is president of the National HEP CAMP Association and director of the CAMP program at Portland Community College.

However, the Department of Education used a rarely used tool called “front loading” to fund 27 of the 73 active programs for two years, while declining to fund the 30 HEP and CAMP programs that were seeking new grants. Contreras had not seen that done in his 15 years with the CAMP program, and the attorneys for the association had never seen it used before either, he said.

HEP and CAMP programs run on five-year grants. The programs that got two-year funding had at least two years left in their five-year grant, Contreras said.

The OSU CAMP program that helped Madrigal at OSU’s own campus was defunded.

OSU’s CAMP program was still within its five-year grant cycle, and was one of 13 programs denied continued funding because their grants contained language that did not align with the Trump administration, Contreras said.

The 13 programs were allowed to appeal, and most of them did, he said. But even though they removed language around equity and showed the success of their programs, the Department of Education still has not approve their request.

The national association will continue to lobby for funding for HEP and CAMP, Contreras said. “This is not done,” he said.

The programs cost little compared to the overall size of the federal budget, and they are successful, Contreras said. In fact, CAMP college students fare better in terms of graduation than the general college student population.

Meanwhile, the national association will post job openings on its webpage, invite defunded programs to its national conference next March, and host free seminars for students on getting scholarships, Contreras said.

The Trump administration’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget does not include funding for the programs. Congress is working on the upcoming federal budget, and the Senate has proposed keeping the funding while the House has not.

“They helped me so much my first year,” Madrigal said of her CAMP experience. Her CAMP work-study internship paid for her housing and dining plan freshman year. She also got a stipend for books. “I don’t think I would have the two bachelor’s degrees I have today without CAMP.”

Madrigal said, “I graduated at the right time, but I could’ve been one of the students right now. If those programs and opportunities didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be here. It sucks to see they’re going away. There are other students who look like me who have the same background like me; what’s going to happen to them?”

She said many students in these programs are the first person in their family to go to college. “That’s why their families moved here, was for that opportunity for a better future. To see that stripped away in the blink of an eye, it’s heartbreaking.

“It feels like you’re letting your parents down and it feels like their immigration was not worth it because you can’t pursue a higher education,” she said. “And you say to your parents, ‘I’m sorry you went through all that,’ everything they had to suffer through, and I can’t do anything about what’s happening.”

The CAMP program at CGCC began two years ago as a pilot program between OSU and CGCC, Linn-Benton and Blue Mountain community colleges.

When the funding was initially lost this summer, OSU was able to find funds to partially continue the CAMP programs at the community colleges, and 6 students at each location were funded by OSU for the fall quarter only.

Contreras said colleges that now have full-year funding will have to scramble to notify students and re-hire laid off staff to run the program.

Both OSU and Washington State University have CAMP programs, and numerous students from the Gorge have utilized both programs, said Karly Aparicio, vice president for student services at CGCC. “There are tons of CAMP alumni in the Columbia River Gorge.”

In Oregon, OSU’s CAMP program has been around for about 20 years, and it has heavily recruited students from the Gorge, said Bartolo Marquez, who runs the HEP program at OSU.

Annually across the state, the CAMP program serves 45 students at Portland Community College, 35 at OSU, and 35 at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, said Marquez. Chemeketa Community College also has CAMP but did not provide numbers to Marquez, he said.