Higher Yearning : Rising costs and shrinking financial aid jeopardize college chances for many seniors. Immigration laws pose an added challenge for students here illigally.

Despite his passion for learning, gift for math and other sciences, and perfect 4.0 grade-point average, 17-year-old Manuel can’t help but fear that he will be left behind next fall when his classmates depart for college.

As an illegal Mexican immigrant, the Garfield High School honor student is ineligible for nearly all financial aid and scholarship opportunities and can’t afford to finance his education on his own.

“I’ve worked my buns off taking the hardest classes,” said Manuel, not his real name, who came to the United States four years ago and is now in the Top 10 of his class of 915. “Sometimes I feel depressed, but other times I want to show that it’s possible for people like me to get an education. It’s not that I want to be a showoff. I just want to keep learning.”

Meanwhile, across town at Los Angeles High School, Marina Bonilla also worries that the efforts she has made to maintain a near straight-A average will not pay off. While the 17-year-old senior is eligible for financial aid, she will not be able to go to a four-year university unless she receives enough money to cover most of her expenses, which could amount to as much as $10,000 a year.

“My parents can only contribute about $400 a year,” said Bonilla, who hopes to attend UCLA. “If I don’t get as much aid as I need, I’ll go to a community college and get a part-time job. It frustrates me that it doesn’t matter how hard you worked. The only thing that matters is money.”

For many students, attending college is becoming much more complicated than simply selecting a school and being admitted. Working around immigration restrictions, as well as obtaining funding at a time when college costs are increasing and public financial aid is shrinking, are proving to be formidable--and often insurmountable--tasks.

“Unless we change these trends, we will see higher education serving primarily the affluent,” said Bruce Hamlett, associate director of the California Postsecondary Education Commission. “The result is that we will have a two-class caste society.

“This is of great concern to educators because this is happening at the same time colleges are trying to increase representation of Latinos and blacks.”

In 1990, 11% of the Latino and 13.7% of the black public high school graduates in California attended either a University of California or California State school. By 1991, those figures had fallen to 10.5% and 13.3%, respectively.

A few weeks before winter break, Cassandra Roy’s college counseling office at Crenshaw High School was packed with seniors frantically trying to complete their Cal State and UC applications before the Nov. 30 deadline.

While Roy realizes that 69% of the graduating seniors in the Los Angeles Unified School District will not attend a four-year college, she tries to convince all of her students that continuing their education is worth the cost, even if it means going into debt.

“I tell them, ‘Don’t let money be the reason you don’t go,’ ” she said.

But this year, Roy may have a particularly difficult time persuading students to work around their financial limitations because of changes and cutbacks in financial aid programs.

To apply for assistance, students must complete state and federal forms that ask complicated questions about family income, family size and assets.

State and federal government offers grants, loans, scholarships and work-study programs. While federal aid is determined solely by financial need, California takes into account both financial need and grade-point averages when distributing its Cal Grants.

By mid-June, students learn what type of financial aid package they will receive from the state, the federal government and the college they will be attending. Oftentimes, packages include a combination of grants, loans and work-study options.

Educators worry that an increasing number of students will not be able to finance their educations this year because Cal Grants, which range from $300 to about $5,250, have been reduced 15% due to state budget cuts.

In July, the federal government restructured its financial aid program by removing home ownership as a factor in determining who receives its Pell Grant awards, which ranged from $200 to $2,400 last year. While this change will allow about 1 million more students to qualify for aid, individual packages are expected to shrink because no additional funding has been added.

The fact that the federal government, which is the primary source of financial aid for most students, has been moving away from providing grants in favor of offering students low-interest loans also worries some local counselors. They say this trend will hurt low-income and immigrant students who often are unfamiliar and somewhat fearful of the loan process.

“So many of our students are the first ones in their families to go to college,” Roy said. “Their parents have the desire for them to go to college, but they don’t know how to get them there and they’re afraid to take out loans because they don’t know if they’ll be able to pay them back. “

In some cases, parents do not want their children to leave home and refuse to offer the moral or financial support many students need to make the jump to college.

“My dad says it’s OK for me to go to college, but my mom doesn’t want me to go,” said Manuel, who wants to be a scientist or mathematician. “She was raised in a little town in Mexico and she’s used to me hanging out with the family.”

Meanwhile, tuitions have gone up at all state colleges and universities and will continue to increase as long as the the state’s financial outlook remains gloomy.

The University of California raised its tuition 22% last fall to $3,044 and plans to increase it an additional 20% next year to $3,649. Likewise, both Cal State University and the state community colleges raised their annual fees by 40%. It now costs California residents $1,308 a year to attend Cal State schools, while community college students pay $10 a unit.

Budget cuts also have forced community colleges to cut 10,000 classes and Cal State University to trim 6,500 classes during the past two years. Educators say this has resulted in crowded classes, long waiting lists and in some cases, declining enrollment.

More than 100,000 students who originally registered at one of the state’s 107 community colleges this fall have dropped out--most likely because they were shut out of classes, said Ann Reed, a spokeswoman for the community colleges.

“We have some waiting lists (for classes) with over 300 students,” she said. “And the picture looks even grimmer for the future.”

At Cal State, enrollment is down by about 14,600 students from the fall of 1991--361,904 to 347,313--said Cal State spokeswoman Colleen Bentley-Adler.

“The chancellor has said several times that while more blacks and Latinos are becoming eligible for admission to CSU and UC, the budget crisis is causing us to enroll less students,” she said. “We’re closing the door right when these students are getting to the door.”

Bell High School senior Sonia Velazquez said that she and her classmates are fretting over the fact that despite their good grades, their chances of attending a four-year university are slipping away.

“It’s like we all have our dream school, but we know we can’t go there because we can’t afford it,” said Velazquez, who has a 4.0 grade-point average and wants to attend Princeton or Stanford. “Two of my friends last year got accepted to UC schools, but ended up at community colleges because they couldn’t afford it.

“You hope for the best, but you have to keep your feet on the ground and realize that you may have to go down on your choices.”

No one knows more about the hardships of financing a college education than the estimated thousands of students in the Los Angeles school district who do not have green cards and are therefore ineligible for federal aid, Cal Grants and most other aid or scholarship programs.

Last year, the office of Immigration and Naturalization Services granted 26,300 visas to Southern California immigrants who had a relative who is a resident or who qualified for employment in this country. Thousands of immigrants are turned away each year because the agency limits the number of visas it grants to people from each country.

While there is no exact figure of how many illegal immigrants are enrolled in the district, Arnold Kaminsky, a Los Angeles High School counselor, estimates that about one-third of the students at his 2,800-student school are here illegally.

Along with being ineligible for financial aid, illegal immigrants in California are required to pay out-of-state tuitions at all University of California schools and state community colleges because of the Bradford Decision, a 1990 appellate court ruling. The difference between in-state and out-of-state fees at the University of California and Cal State University is more than $7,000 a year.

Cal State University has ignored the Bradford ruling, adhering instead to a 1985 Alameda County decision requiring illegal immigrants to pay the same fees as state residents. But a number of groups sued the university in August, demanding that it revoke its policy and repay the state treasury all the money lost under the policy.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the groups in September, but the university appealed the decision in October and is awaiting a judgment from the Second District Court of Appeal.

Educators say if Cal State starts charging illegal immigrants out-of-state fees, most of them they would not be able to afford college.

“Right now, Cal State is the only place these students can go,” said Esther Walling, a college counselor at Bell High School. “To most of us, this is criminal because in California, we say you must stay in school until you’re 16 or else your parents will face prosecution. And then we tell them when they graduate that unless you can pay 10 times more, you can’t go to college.”

But Leslie Dutton, president of one of the groups that filed the lawsuit against Cal State, said immigration laws are being violated.

“Our government and the people in charge of enforcing laws are not doing what they’re supposed to do and people are suffering from it,” she said. “A growing number of groups and citizens are fed up that taxpayers’ benefits are being given away to people who aren’t qualified to receive them. Our children are having to compete with these students who are in this country illegally.”

Daniel, a senior at Crenshaw High School with a 3.9 grade-point average, understands the complexities of the law, but cannot understand why people are fighting so hard to keep someone like him, an illegal immigrant, out of college.

“I’m here to study, not to cause problems,” said Daniel, who moved to California from Mexico four years ago. “I don’t want to get involved with gangs. The only thing I want is financial aid so I can go to college.”

One of the only options illegal immigrants have to finance their education is to seek scholarships from private foundations or citizens such as Arthur Armstrong, a Los Angeles lawyer who has given away more than $100,000 in scholarships since 1991.

After establishing a foundation with family members, Armstrong contacted Don Mroscak, a college counselor at Garfield High School, and told him he wanted to give away one $5,000 scholarship to a high-achieving senior. However, after interviewing a few of the school’s top students, Armstrong was so moved that he ended up giving away 21 scholarships.

“He came out of the interviews with tears in his eyes,” Mroscak said. “He claimed he was sucked in.”

Among those receiving scholarships was a student who did not have her documentation, Armstrong said. “I was outraged because she was extraordinarily capable,” he said. “I was incensed that the system was going to throw her out in the cold. But I know it’s a complex situation because there’s only so many dollars available in financial aid to go around.”

Despite the numerous barriers, some students such as Crenshaw High School senior Adrilisa Steele say they are determined to go to college.

“Nothing will get in my way,” said Steele, who is pregnant. “Everybody needs to go to college because there aren’t many positive things going on for a lot of people. You always have to answer to a higher calling.”

Where to Turn for Help

Loans, grants and scholarships are available from the state and federal government, as well as from private sources.

For information about Cal Grants, the state work-study program, student loans and scholarships, call the California Student Aid Commission at (916) 445-0880. To be considered for a Cal Grant, a completed Student Aid Application for California must by postmarked by March 2.

The U.S. Department of Education can provide information about the federal Pell Grant program and other sources of financial aid at (800) 333-INFO. The last day to file an application for federal student aid is May 1.

A publication that lists scholarships for minorities is “Higher Education Opportunities for Minorities and Women.” The book can be ordered for $8 by writing to: Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 20402-9325.

Another source of information is a series of books called “Financial Aid for Minorities.” Each book focuses on a different field, such as health, business or education. The books are $4.95 each or $27 per set and are available through Garrett Park Press, P.O. Box 190, Garrett Park, Md. 20896.