More Illegal Aliens Secure Safe Space at College, at a Discount
Roughly half a million “undocumented students” attend colleges and universities across America. Eager to enroll more immigrants regardless of status, a growing number of states (23 and counting) extend discounted tuition rates to illegal aliens. Some are even getting free rides.
FAIR estimates that around 460,000 illegal alien college students, including 193,000 DACA recipients, were enrolled in American universities and community colleges in 2021. With the DACA crowd aging out, universities are busy brainstorming “alternative strategies to equitable outcomes.” In plain English that means ginning up new tuition breaks and special incentives to get more illegally present individuals into college lecture halls.
Immigration enthusiasts in the Ivory Towers like to blur the difference between legal and illegal immigrants; the smart set downplays such a distinction as “complicated,” or worse. These “thought leaders” are making headway at state legislatures that are increasingly voting to grant in-state tuition breaks to individuals in violation of this country’s immigration laws.
So far, 23 states and the District of Columbia offer various “tuition equity” schemes. The number is expected to rise as more lawmakers jump on the bandwagon. Minnesota just launched a tuition-free college program for students from low-income families, regardless of immigration status.
Special in-state tuition breaks for illegal alien students directly conflict with federal law. In 1996, Congress legislated that offering in-state discounts to illegal aliens required that the same tuition be made available to all U.S. residents.
But California, one of the early adopters, engineered a loophole by granting in-state tuition to illegal aliens based on their having attended high school in the Golden State. Since all states are required to accept any pupil who shows up at K-12 schools, other states have thrown open their college gates as well.
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld Texas’ program that awards in-state tuition to illegal aliens while assessing higher fees on American students from outside Texas. The cost gap is significant: In-state tuition at the University of Texas is $11,000-$14,000 versus non-resident tuition that runs $36,000 to $47,000.
But wait, there’s more. Though U.S. law bars “undocumented” students from receiving federal grants and loans, colleges are circumventing this too. Seventeen states, so far, offer state-funded financial aid programs to illegal aliens. In addition, four other states have passed laws that vaguely offer “access to in-state tuition.”
In each case, taxpayers are subsidizing illegal aliens at public institutions of higher education. And, as FAIR noted recently, conservative states are falling in line. Wyoming is currently considering a Republican-sponsored bill to extend in-state breaks to “undocumented” students there.
Proponents argue that post-secondary diplomas – irrespective of how they are obtained or who gets them – are a net benefit to society. “Given the growing campus presence and economic potential of immigrant-origin students, it is crucial to pay greater attention to this population,” stated a commentary published this month by the Migration Policy Institute.
“Pay” is the operative word. FAIR calculates that states incur a cost of $2,789,760,000 annually in the form of post-secondary tuition losses and financial aid benefiting “undocumented students.” That number has grown every year and will soar as more states buy into the “intersectional dynamics” of subsidizing illegal aliens.