One program on campus aids students from farmworking families as they become the first generation of university students.

Attending high school in Mendota, Calif., with a mother at work in the fields, Arcadia Nunez was behind in school.

A counselor told her about the University Migrant Services (UMS) program at Fresno State.

“I didn’t know the process of college,” Nunez said. “It was a whole new experience.”

Nunez attributes UMS with getting her caught up. She will be graduating in December with a communicative disorders degree.

Last semester, 795 students who come from migrant, farmworking families took classes on campus.

Maxine McDonald, assistant vice president for student success services, said the UMS program is unique in that it caters to students of farmworker families and coordinates with the migrant community.

McDonald said students who come from migrant families don’t have an experienced parent at home to tell them how college works. The UMS program provides them with that guidance and mentors them through the system.

McDonald said UMS serves an important purpose.

“Whenever students are involved in their community and campus, it persists that they’ll stay in the community,” McDonald said.

UMS coordinator Raul Moreno facilitates for the students even before they are enrolled at Fresno State.

The majority of the students in the program are Latino, with a smaller population of Southeast Asian and Punjabi students. Because most of them speak English as a second language, Moreno said the earlier the students can be identified, the better.

“By the time we get them, they’re already behind,” Moreno said. “That’s the urgency for finding them early.”

If the student can be discovered in middle school or early high school, he or she has the chance to make up some academic ground through summer school.

High schools throughout the Central Valley have a counselor designated to identify the children of farmworkers, and get them on track to attend college.

Before a student can catch up, often he or she needs to be encouraged.

“The first challenge is the motivation part,” Moreno said. “The students need to understand that they actually have an opportunity.”

Once a student has cleared both the educational and academic hurdles, he or she has to figure out how to afford tuition.

In October 2001, California Assembly bill 540 made it legal for the children of farmworkers to pay in-state tuition, assuming that they fit the criteria: the student must have attended high school in California for at least three years, graduated from high school or received the general education diploma (GED), register or be enrolled in a California college and sign a statement that he or she will apply for legal residency as soon as eligible.

Moreno said roughly 80 percent of the students in his program attain their citizenship, a process that he said takes anywhere between three and 30 years.

Each student will have a different path, Moreno said. The students born in the United States, about 70 percent, will likely qualify for financial aid, internships and scholarships. However, foreign-born students can’t receive federal or state financial aid.

Moreno said few scholarships exist for those immigrant students, so they must rely on community service.

“If you do community service for an agency, chances are, that agency is going to help you out [with a scholarship],” Moreno said.

The agencies are not bound to any contracts. However, Moreno acts on the student’s behalf as, in a sense, a lawyer, he said.

Moreno, a Fresno State graduate, was once in the same place as the students he works with. He dropped out of high school to work in the fields.

“A project within the migrant education program reached out to me, and helped me get out of the fields and get back on track,” Moreno said.