Arizona Western College kicked off the start of another academic year this last Monday, and while classes have begun like usual and students are going through the motions, they do so not without concerns.
At large, the higher education funding landscape is changing considerably, leaving the future of certain longstanding programs at AWC decidedly uncertain.
One program is TRIO, an institution at the college since 1991, which has yet to hear word on whether its KEYS program — known federally as Student Support Services — will be renewed for another five years. There are just five days left until the end of its current grant cycle.
The other main program at risk is the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP). Its five-year grant cycle already ended on June 30, 2025, and despite applying for renewal last year, there’s been no response from the federal government.
All About CAMP
Since 2020, there have been 64 awarded grantees throughout the U.S. In Arizona, there are only two—Arizona State University and AWC, but AWC’s has been around longer.
In the 15 years it’s existed at Arizona Western, CAMP has become a beloved part of the college. Each year, 40 students with migrant or seasonal farmworking backgrounds receive scholarships to join the program, which is designed to help them succeed in their first year of higher education.
At AWC, CAMP supports them for the first two years. The first year is funded by the federal grant whereas the second year is covered by the college. The students’ scholarships include living on campus, financial aid stipends, academic counseling, tutoring, skills workshops and health referrals.
The residential component is more unique to AWC’s program. According to CAMP Program Director Rosalia Delgado, CAMP students live on campus for many reasons.
“One of the things: there’s so many food insecurities out there, so it provides the three meals a day that students should be having,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t have transportation, so being here on campus helps with their reaching those resources that are available here on campus. Some of the students require more attention than others and being here helps them get those opportunities like networking, like getting to know other programs, other resources and it just helps the students.”
CAMP Academic Advisor and Transition Coordinator Rafael Encinas added that some students don’t have a home base or an area with affordable or usable Wi-Fi.
“As we know now, Wi-Fi, it's a necessity now; it's part of the world. So it's one of those things where being able to have that access to live on campus allows them so much openness to not just explore their options as academic students but also become actual alumni,” he said. “One thing that I think is really important is the reason that I think our students are so important—not to just brag about our students, but I want to take a moment—is I feel a lot of our students, because they live on campus, they're able to do more community-service-type activities throughout the year, that they become better acquainted with experiences to the point where they're able to then apply and become those work-study, those part-time students that we see in financial aid, that we see in admissions, that we see in print services, that we see become tutors, that we see work the front desk in the residence halls.”
Delgado commented that sometimes, CAMP students are hesitant coming in because living away from family and staying in a dorm with someone they don’t know is a little difficult, “but by the end of the first semester, I think they get the idea that this really works.”
Since each cohort is 40 students, that means CAMP is serving 80 official students each year. But the community is bigger. Encinas explained they offer support to ‘adopted’ students.
“The thing is we always have, kind of like, an open-door system,” he said. “Yes, we get our students, but sometimes if a student doesn't make the cut-off or they're unable to, we have a lot of adopted students who will come in and though we can't provide them with the financial support, they're in here. I advise them, Aidaly helps them with FAFSA, we invite them to our activities and our programs … Our model is really focused on best practices and best practice is we already have our students that have to do these things; if more students want to come, then we can do that.”
CAMP’s Financial Status
To date, there have been 15 CAMP cohorts at AWC. The federal grant program runs on five year cycles, so the college first received the grant in 2010 and has been renewed twice since. The most recent cycle ended at the end of June, but they have received no news on the status of their renewal application.
It bears mention that President Donald Trump’s discretionary budget request for fiscal year 2026 proposes entirely eliminating CAMP among other programs (see page 6). It’s unclear whether that may be the cause for the delayed notification but until news to the contrary, the federal funding for CAMP has been effectively frozen.
CAMP is continuing to operate now, however, because of the college.
“Because of our success, Arizona Western College is working with us to try and support us for this upcoming year to make sure that we can still help the students that we have here,” Encinas said. “What that's going to transform into? I don't know; it's still a very touch-and-go type of thing, but I know that Dr. Corr and Arizona Western College itself is doing their best to try to support us, to support the students that we have.”
During the most recent college district governing board meeting, Corr explained that the college is considering the CAMP grant lost given the long overdue response.
“We all know there are headwinds in higher education right now,” he said. “We are now quite certain we will not receive a renewal of our CAMP grant that supports 40 students—40 students who, by the way, live in the residence halls and that revenue helps that 81% residency rate. We are quite certain that that continued funding—it doesn't exist. It's not coming.”
The college’s funding commitment ensures CAMP can proceed like usual for this academic year, but no promises have been made for the years beyond so the longevity of the program remains up in the air.
The Case for CAMP
As for whether the program should continue to exist, both Delgado and Encinas—who have worked for the program 15 and 10 years respectively—can attest to the significance of such a program in Yuma County.
Encinas noted that higher education isn’t readily available to everyone, but citing the college’s mission of transforming lives, he said that opportunity should apply for all kinds of students.
“I’ve heard so many stories of students, you know, waking up at certain hours of the morning just to go wait in line to be able to cross the border because all of our students that are part of CAMP, they’re either U.S. citizens or permanent residents,” he said. “Some of them, their parents can’t cross and so because they can’t cross, those students, they have to live with uncles and aunts. They have to find a way to get that education."
Encinas observed that a lot of CAMP students are already in a position where they know what hard work means due to the many barriers they face.
"What AWC does so well is they eliminate barriers or they try to, and with our program, I think it’s really essential because we’re eliminating barriers for these students who have been forced to deal with so much," he continued. “And I feel these are a big lifeblood of our area. You know, agriculture is so big in our specific community. I think that it is a really important aspect to make sure that these students and these children and these families are continuously supported because it is hard.”
Delgado affirmed these students’ agricultural backgrounds are integral to Yuma.
“The Yuma community is a big part of the ag, and these are families that are—I mean, we have the largest number of migrant students in the state of Arizona,” she said. “So this does matter to the community, in my opinion. It matters a lot. It's almost like you go around and anywhere you go, somebody has somebody that's worked in the fields or does currently. Our students, some of them also have worked in the fields. It does matter for our community.”
Despite the migrant aspect of the program, this doesn’t mean the students are undocumented.
“Our students either were born in the United States or are legally here,” Delgado said. “That's the requirements … if they're newly awarded status here in the United States, they've already met their requirements. We don't recruit outside of our service area.”
Meaning, CAMP students at AWC are from the community.
Community Students
KAWC spoke with a few students about their experiences with CAMP.
One student, Erick Torres, is a second-year student who entered the program after graduating from San Luis High School.
“I think generally, just, without the camp program, I wouldn't have been able to come here because I wouldn't have had the funds, so I would have had to have either been part time or have gotten a job and do part time,” he said.
For Torres, the program’s set-up has been beneficial for his success.
“I have ADHD so it’s a bit harder for me to learn, and the CAMP program provides tutors, especially for math, which is something that I struggle with a lot, and so that definitely helped me in my first semester, alongside the other resources of the campus here in Yuma gives us,” he said. “So that’s why housing here is really important. Because I have a reason to get up and go to those, like the Student Success Center; I was just there.”
Torres shared that he’s studying civil engineering now because of his brother, who’s his biggest inspiration. Torres’ brother is the head of IT for the City of San Luis, and while Torres doesn’t want to do the exact same thing, he’s really interested in being involved with construction and buildings for the city.
Sandra Campos, a fellow second-year, is studying psychology in hopes of helping children. Living on campus has been especially helpful since she’d otherwise have to cross the border regularly to make it to classes — something she used to do for high school. Despite this, she was initially afraid about the big change.
“At first, I was very, very afraid, nervous because I was very, well, very attached to my family, and well yes, I thought a lot about coming here because I was going to be with people I didn’t know,” she said in Spanish. “The first thing I said is, well, at first I was very negative, I was afraid because I was going to be doing something new. In other words, like a very radical change because, also, I’d never lived here in the United States and in high school, I had to cross every day from Mexico to San Luis, Arizona and I was even more afraid.
“But now being here, I don’t know. Like, the team at CAMP helped familiarize me with the college and bit by bit, my nerves left. After a time, it was like being with another family here, a second family with Aidaly, Rafa, Rosalia and Jose, and well, on top of that, with friends too who become part of your family and well, that’s where I am now. I feel this has been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.”
Both Campos and Torres had commented that CAMP students further contribute to their community at AWC through volunteer work.
"Last year, I was in CAMPSA and we organized events, we helped organize college events and we helped," Campos said. "We volunteered for events from the college and the community, like Día del Campesino."
According to Campos, the program matters considerably because the students are seeking to contribute to their communities in the U.S.
“I mean, I’m going to graduate, but my first-year friends, how are they going to do it?” she said, expressing concern. “Because this is something very important because it helps you a lot in your classes, everything’s close, tutoring… I mean, all of that, and it seems to me like it’s something very important for the college and part of the United States, too, because we’re studying to help in the future, to be part of the workforce like nurses, psychologists and the like.”
Jared Bruegueño, a first-year student coming from Mexico, is certainly concerned about the prospects for next year.
“Well, yes, because I still have, like, another year and I don't know how it's going to work next year, maybe applying for a scholarship or something,” he said. “But it is… it's not going to be the same.”
Although he’s new to the program, he’s already very appreciative of the people at CAMP.
“Every person that is part of the program is helping us to achieve our goals or to have bright future, so they are good people with good intentions,” he added.
Despite the worries, he and his peers are trying to make the most of their time now and look forward to the future.
“Well the talk with them is about, like, going to the pool and stuff in our free time, but now they're, like, very excited about the classes or what they want to be in life, like their job, being surgeons, being a chef, everything that helps them do that in the future,” he said.
Hoping for the Future
Whether the CAMP program exists beyond this academic year remains to be seen, but the team at CAMP are holding out hope.
“I'm hopeful,” Encinas said. “My director is hopeful. We followed everything. We had one of our most successful academic years this past year, so I don't see why we wouldn't be able to. But again, it's all focusing on [the federal government] freezing right now and not letting us know. We were supposed to know close to July 1st, so everything that we've been doing since July 1st has been because of the college and the fact that they stepped in and they're basically supplying us, institutionalizing us for this academic year to make sure that we're providing support to our students.”
Encinas said the goal for now is for CAMP to continue doing what it’s doing.
“We're opening up everything that we're doing, of course, to general student population as well,” he said. “I mean, what I mean by that is when we have activities or we have events, we normally invite others as well, but we're going to be a little bit more forward-thinking this year to invite more and more people. So our goal is to kind of be able to try to help as many students as we can besides just ours. And then on top of that, what we're hoping for is by the time we're done helping our students get all the support possible just in case we aren't around next year.
“That could mean helping them get additional scholarships and just getting them prepared because without us around, students can still live on campus. They can still apply to the residence hall. It's just they won't have that CAMP scholarship that's going to help them to make it more affordable for them.”
Some of the other 15 grantees from the year 2020 have confirmed they’re facing the same silence from the government:
- Eastern Washington University told the Spokesman Review that it’s seen a delay in CAMP funding.
- The Idaho Capital Sun published an opinion piece on the University of Idaho CAMP program’s closure.
- The CAMP page for the University of Houston is no longer active.
- The Metropolitan State University of Denver announced directly that it halted its CAMP program amid funding lapse.
- St. Edward’s University is continuing its program through donor support in lieu of government funding.
- Texas State Technical College confirmed with KAWC that it continues to wait for news on renewal.
- KUOW reported that the University of Washington is also pending news from the government.
At AWC, Encinas concluded that the situation’s still up in the air.
“It could be any day that the federal government comes in and says, ‘Okay, you guys have five more years,’ or it could be the opposite,” he said. “‘You don't have five years’ or they completely dismantle the CAMP program. Only time will tell.”
This reporting is supported by a grant from the Arizona Local News Foundation.
