Opportunity Scholarship founder Don Graham meets with Dreamers

The Dreamers – a group of undocumented students enrolled at DSU – recently met with Don Graham, whose scholarship program has made it possible for them to be at Delaware State University.

Mr. Graham – the founder of TheDream.US and its Opportunity Scholarship – joined a large group of Dreamers on Feb. 14 for dinner in the Barros Room of the Dr. Claibourne Smith Administration Building.

During his visit, Mr. Graham also met with University President Tony Allen and the Dreamers new advisor Margie Waite Lopez.

DSU entered into an agreement with Mr. Graham and his TheDream.US to honor the Opportunity Scholarships and enroll the Dreamers accepted in the program beginning in 2016. Since then, every fall a new cohort group of Dreamers begin their undergraduate journey.

The first Dreamer in that program graduated in December 2019. Since then, 125 Dreamers have completed their bachelor’s degrees.

The Opportunity Scholarship recipients are undocumented immigrants who as children came with their parents into the United States and attended public schools, excelling academically.

Through no fault of their own, they have traditionally found themselves locked out of state institutions of higher education – either by being declared out-of-state students (with unaffordable out-of-state tuition costs) or by laws in certain states that prohibit the enrollment of undocumented students at state colleges and universities.

Delaware State University and Eastern Connecticut State University were the first two universities to accept Opportunity Scholarship students and make possible for them to earn a bachelor’s degree.