After the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, many college students in the Gulf region no longer have a place to attend classes.

Sacramento State, along with some CSUs and more than 70 other colleges around the nation, is now offering enrollment to students displaced by the disaster.

So far, about 20 students from the effected region have come to Sac State. Most are Sacramento-area natives who were attending colleges in universities around New Orleans.

Miguel Molina, the associate director of admissions and records, said these students had already paid their tuition and housing fees and had bought their books.

“They had to just walk away,” Molina said.

The students’ registration fees would be deferred as long as possible, Molina said.

Displaced students seeking to attend Sac State will not have to pay non-resident fees, but those students will still have to pay resident tuition as well as housing fees if they reside in the dorms.

A proposal made to the Faculty Senate on Thursday would waive all fees for those students who have absolutely nothing left.

Cecil Canton, a criminal justice professor who presented the proposal with journalism professor Michael Fitzgerald, said the concern is that students coming from the effected areas do not need student loan worries on top of the difficulties they already have.

The proposal will be discussed at the next Faculty Senate meeting on Sept. 22.

“This is a positive thing,” Molina said. “I’ve had people call and offer their homes to students for free.”

Sac State students have varied views on the acceptance of displaced students.

“It is probably necessary to keep most student victims of Katrina in school during the hard times,” Nick Weber said, a senior in finance.

Nathan Berger, a junior history major, disagrees.

“We don’t need to allow those students in. People here have a hard enough time getting classes as it is,” he said.

Many of the displaced students arrived during the second week of classes, a time when there are not many classes left. Some students still have not arrived.

“I know some students are going to be showing up next week,” Molina said.

During the Faculty Senate meeting on Thursday, Ric Brown, the vice president of academic affairs, asked the faculty if they would approve the circulation of a note asking for volunteers to take students into their classes during the third week of the semester.

In addition to Sac State, at least six other CSUs have opened their doors to displaced students. Among them are Chico, Bakersfield, and Humboldt State University.

There are also more than 70 colleges around the country accepting students from the region. Schools such as Texas A&M, Cornell University and Duke University are also offering students enrollment opportunities.

One of these schools, Columbia College in Chicago, Ill., is even offering one year of enrollment, all expenses paid. The offer includes tuition, room and board, and all transportation costs.

A list of colleges offering positions to victims of Hurricane Katrina can be found on the blog of Daniel J. Nugent, a member of the senate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The blog can be found at http://www.o4sabk.blogspot.com.

Jenna Hughes can be reached at [email protected]