Migrant student program at Portland Community College threatened by defunding

The College Assistance for Migrants Program, or CAMP, has supported children of migrant farmworkers for more than 50 years — helping students who often face financial hardship, language barriers, and limited academic preparation navigate their first year of college.

But this year, the federal funds that sustain CAMP programs across the country have been frozen, despite being approved by Congress for the 2025 fiscal year.

At Portland Community College, the delay in nearly $475,000 in funding threatens to halt scholarships, mentorship, and key support services that many students rely on to stay enrolled and succeed.

Greg Contreras, who runs PCC’s program, and sophomore Atziri Lopez — a former CAMP student and current peer mentor for the program — join us to discuss how the funding freeze is already disrupting students’ lives, and what could be lost if the program is forced to shut down.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The College Assistance for Migrants program, or CAMP, has supported children of migrant farm workers for more than 50 years. It’s a federally-funded program that helps students who often face financial hardships, language barriers or limited academic preparation navigate their first year of college. But this year, those federal funds have been frozen. At Portland Community College, this delay threatens nearly half a million dollars in funding for services that many students rely on.

We’re going to get two perspectives on this right now. Greg Contreras runs PCC’s CAMP program. He is also the president of the National HEP/CAMP Association. Atziri Lopez is going into her sophomore year at PCC. She is a former CAMP student herself and now a current peer mentor. It’s great to have both of you on the show.

Greg Contreras: Thank you.

Atziri Lopez: Thank you.

Miller: Greg, first – I gave a two-sentence version, but what’s the big idea behind the CAMP program?

Contreras: Sure. CAMP stands for College Assistance for Migrants Program, as you mentioned. In our country, from coast to coast, we have about 63 CAMP programs at different community colleges like PCC. We’re also at universities and private schools.

And it’s to give students from a farmworker, agricultural background – for example, in Washington County, picking the blueberries and other crops – a chance to go to college for the first year and get wraparound services such as academic advising, financial support and mentorship. For example, Atziri is gonna be an incoming mentor for next year. But with the absence of these funds, it makes it difficult for all 63 CAMP programs to continue this important work.

Miller: How many students at PCC rely on CAMP in any given year?

Contreras: In our federal grants, which are administered through the Office of Migrant Education at DOE, we promise to serve 45 incoming first-year students each year. So for example, Atziri was part of last year’s 45, and we’ve already successfully recruited a new group of 45 students for this fall.

Miller: Atziri, I mentioned you’re about to start your sophomore year at PCC and you’re going to be a peer mentor at CAMP this year, but my understanding is that you started college at Portland State University. What was that experience like?

Lopez: Yes, correct. My experience at Portland State University was a little difficult, I will admit. I started there during the fall and unfortunately left during the winter when we were coming up close to our Christmas break. I’d previously mentioned that it was due to one of my professors telling me that I just wasn’t meant to be in college. Ultimately, I believed them and this is what eventually led me to withdraw from Portland State University. Originally, I just thought, “I’m just gonna stay at Starbucks and I’m just gonna work,” but something in me told me that that just wasn’t the case. I didn’t wanna just work at Starbucks my whole life.

Coincidentally, my brother was part of the CAMP program and it is here that I came to know of CAMP. My brother saw how much it affected me that this professor had expressed their opinion about me in that way. He was like, “I need you to have some faith in yourself and I know that you can get really far here. I want you to give CAMP a try. At least try Portland Community College. Get a one-year degree, a two-year degree, just do something.” And I listened and that is how I found my way to CAMP.

Miller: Was it scary starting a new school after the negative experience that you just had?

Lopez: I will say yes, I remember first walking in and thinking, “How can I, someone that dropped out of Portland State University, succeed at Portland Community College if I had a professor previously telling me you’re not meant to be in college?”

Miller: What kinds of support did you get through CAMP that made that semester at PCC last year different?

Lopez: I think in my opinion it was different because I got that one-on-one experience, where I had the help from a mentor, Greg and Marisela. What I mean by that is that with my mentor – her name is Ola Lina – she helped me navigate through getting through and finding my classes, making sure I signed up for them on time, making sure that the assignments that were being assigned to me were being submitted correctly, and things that you wouldn’t normally think you were necessary for you to know. Because as an incoming first generation college student, I was oblivious to everything going on around me, but I wanted to make sure that it was being done right.

And Greg and Marisela, as well as Ola Lina, helped me navigate through that first year, and made sure that I was able to be successful by providing me the resources such as scholarships. We had workshops available where, for example, we had a bank come in one time and teach us about credit scores and how to get your own credit card to build your own credit. And like I said, it’s little things like that that you wouldn’t think you would need but you do really need.

Miller: How different are you, do you think, as a college student now – we’re about a month or so away from the next semester starting – from one year ago today, just before you started at PSU? I’m just wondering how much you’ve changed, because right now you seem like a very put together college student. But it seems like you’re saying that a lot of what you learned in terms of how to be a college student, you got through CAMP just in the last six months.

Lopez: Yeah, correct. I definitely agree that I’m much more mature. I was definitely more naive back then and less prepared for what I had to take on. I definitely came into my first year thinking, “Oh it should be a breeze, almost like high school,” which I was severely mistaken. I definitely learned through my experience with CAMP to hold myself accountable. I know that, before coming into the program, I’m gonna be honest, I wasn’t someone that held myself accountable as much as I should be. And now I know that everything falls back on me. I’m responsible for my own self. And if I want to get somewhere in life, I’m the one that’s gonna have to make it work.

Miller: I want to hear more about what it’s like to be a peer mentor, to do this for other people. But Greg, to go back to you … When did you learn that the money for this school year, the year that’s about to start, was not coming in?

Contreras: Yeah, that’s a challenging one. Across the country, there’s, as I mentioned, 63 CAMP programs. Our sister program is called HEP, the High School Equivalency Program. There’s about 52 of those, so let’s just say well over 100 HEP/CAMP programs.

In Congress, it was already appropriated for $52 million to go to these programs to continue for the fiscal year 2025, and those funds were to go to all programs, including PCC CAMP by July 1. It’s now early August, so it’s now due. It’s a month late. And unfortunately, without these federal dollars for these programs, many programs around the country have been forced to shut down, meaning layoff notices have been given to their staff. Incoming students for both programs are not gonna get the help that they need. So PCC CAMP is looking at that real likelihood of closing down in the event that we don’t get these federal dollars soon.

Miller: And just so I understand, you realized that the money wasn’t coming through after this coming years CAMP students, CAMP participants, had already been accepted?

Contreras: Yeah, this past academic year. While Atziri was in her first year of college, we were already recruiting. We’re doing the right thing, to recruit, go into a few different school districts, go to the high schools, talk to students who are excited and stoked to start college, and tell them, “Hey, we got this great CAMP program and you’re gonna get so much support. It’s gonna help you out a lot. It’s gonna have that sense of community for you to thrive.” And now we’re having to build a different message for those students.

Miller: What’s the message now?

Contreras: The message I feel is two-fold. One is that there is still a possibility for the Department of Education to do the right thing and release those funds to, not just PCC CAMP, but to all happening HEP/CAMP programs around the country. To go back to them and say, “Hey, by the way, there was a scare for a moment, but now we have our funds, business as usual. Atziri is gonna be your mentor. We’re gonna do this conference, we’re gonna have this class, we’re gonna have this workshop.”

The other message that we would also send the students is the message, if we don’t get the funds, to still come to college, still come to PCC, still be successful, still use the supports that are there to make college possible.

Miller: Will anybody at PCC be able to provide the kind of tutoring, advising, handholding, knowledge and wisdom that used to happen, that has been happening through this federally-funded program? I mean, are there people at PCC who can pick up the slack?

Contreras: Unfortunately, no. CAMP is really special now. It’s a community. Our focus was that student, as mentioned, that one-on-one attention. Yeah, there’s a lot of support at PCC but it’ll be diminished. The students won’t have that sense of community, that sense of connection to each other.

So they can still get some help, but it’ll be sparse. You know, “Hey, go meet with this department or that department,” but there’s nothing there to absorb our incoming students who have unique needs. Our students are low income. Again, they come from a farmworker population, they’re low-income, they’re first generation, so they have specific unique needs that our CAMP program is built to support them.

Miller: In the president’s proposed budget for next year, which proposed cutting this money, he wrote that migrant education programs, “work to the detriment of children’s academic success by encouraging movement from rather than stability and consistency in a single location.”

And from my understanding, this is not just about the college program, but about the high school program as well. What’s your response to that? I don’t feel like there have been too many clear justifications for these cuts, but that’s one of them in the president’s proposed budget.

Contreras: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. We owe so much to our hardworking farmworkers. You know, we eat three meals a day. We have breakfast, lunch, dinner because of farmworkers that put food on our table. And that’s the reality of a lot of farmworking families, being able to go from this community to that community, to follow the field work with no high school or college credentials. For many farmworking families, that’s the option that they have on the table, to be able to do the hard labor that needs to be done to feed not just this country but the world. So that is a real likelihood, that families do need to migrate, to move from community to community, to support that ...

Miller: To follow harvest …

Contreras: Exactly, to follow the harvest, so that you and I can eat.

Miller: As reported by Inside Higher Education, the administration also said that the Office of Migrant Education takes resources from American students by encouraging “ineligible non-citizens to attend U.S. colleges and universities.” Is that true?

Contreras: It’s not true. In fact, all CAMP students are FAFSA eligible, and to be eligible for the FAFSA, you have to be a citizen. That’s Atziri’s case, and the incoming group of 45 students at PCC CAMP are all American citizens. I wanna also add to that, these students will be successful in the CAMP program and will also be successful in American society. I have no doubt that Atziri will one day be a career professional woman out in the community, staying most likely in Oregon, being an honest taxpayer and contributing to America.

Miller: Atziri, how do you plan to approach being a peer mentor? Let’s say that this money is not replaced. Obviously, Greg is hoping it will be, but let’s say it’s not. I mean, first of all, maybe the question is more basic … Will you even be able to call yourself a CAMP peer mentor?

Lopez: I think, regardless of whether or not I get the position, that doesn’t change my stance here, which is to help students. And what I mean by that is, like I previously discussed with Greg, my passion here is helping students, making sure they get that one-on-one connection, that community, that support. Because like we said, we’re coming from students that are from farmworker backgrounds, who have families that can’t necessarily afford to pay for college.

I wanna be able to help them and support them through this new chapter in their life, which is college; just like how I had a difficult situation at the beginning of college and I had no one to fall back on when this challenge came. I wanna be able to be that person for these students so that they don’t have to do what I did, which was leave college. I believe that there are always people, there is always extra help that is available. And like I said, I wanna be able to be that help, regardless if I get paid or not. I don’t think that money changes anything or any of my stance on this.

Miller: Do you feel ready to do that? I mean, it was only a year ago that you left PSU and eventually turned to this program that gave you a ton of help. You feel prepared now to help others?

Lopez: I feel prepared because of the challenges that I faced and also my experience that I have had with the CAMP program, because I believe that it has made me someone that’s more mature. I can now look at these challenges and I know what to do. Maybe I don’t know exactly what a student is going through, because there are things that we don’t talk about. But like I said, now I have a better idea of what it’s like to be navigating your first year through college, and with my experience, I’m able to support those students.

Miller: Greg, will you have a job if this money doesn’t come through?

Contreras: Not with PCC. I got my layoff notice for early October, so that’s the reality across all HEP/CAMP programs across the country. Without these federal dollars, many institutions really don’t have the resources to sustain these programs. So yeah, that would be really unfortunate. However, I still have hope. I do believe in our history, as you mentioned, half of a century of our programs, and there are some advocacy efforts happening to compel Congress and the Department of Education to do the right thing and release these funds, so that we can help students like Atziri and others be successful.

Miller: Greg and Atziri, thanks very much.

Contreras: Thank you.

Lopez: Of course, thank you.

Miller: Greg Contreras is the director of the CAMP program at PCC. Atziri Lopez is a former student. She’s now a CAMP peer mentor going into her sophomore year at Portland Community College.

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