California Assemblymember and 2016 congressional candidate Katcho Achadjian spoke with students at Santa Barbara Hillel in Isla Vista Tuesday night and fielded tough questions on the rising cost of college tuition and its effects on undocumented students.
Achadjian is an immigrant who came to the U.S. in 1971 for higher education. He went to Cuesta Community College and graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He worked at a gas station to put himself through school.
Third-year UCSB student and Collegiate Senator Stevan Abdalmalik revealed that Achadjian had voted in January 2011 against a bill allowing undocumented students to pay in-state college tuition. Despite the bill’s passage, Abdalmalik asked the assemblymember how as an immigrant himself he could, “look an undocumented student in the eye” and tell them he was willing to deny in-state tuition to such students, ultimately making it impossible for them to attend a UC.