Florida Bill Would Repeal In-State Tuition Rates for Illegal Aliens

FAIR Take | December 2024
Last week, Florida State Senator Randy Fine (R-Brevard County) introduced a bill to repeal a 2014 law that offers in-state tuition to illegal aliens. The bill would cover all of Florida’s 12 state universities and 28 state colleges, which, in 2021, collectively used $45 million in taxpayer dollars to provide this benefit to illegal aliens. If signed into law, the bill would remove Florida from the list of 25 states that allow illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition rates.
Senate Bill (S.B.) 90, would repeal a 2014 law that waived out-of-state tuition fees for illegal aliens if they met the following conditions:
- They attended a secondary school in Florida for 3 consecutive years immediately before graduating from a high school in the state,
- They applied for enrollment at a college or university within 24 months after graduating high school, and
- They submitted their official transcript as evidence of their attendance and graduation at a state high school.
If S.B. 90 is enacted, it would eliminate this waiver provision and would instead require illegal aliens to pay the out-of-state tuition rates that all non-resident citizens pay.
State Senator Fine’s impetus for repealing this decade-old law is not only the financial burden it imposes on state taxpayers, but also the injustice it creates for American citizens wishing to obtain higher education in Florida. With approximately 43,000 illegal alien students enrolled in higher education institutions, Florida has the third-highest numberof illegal aliens enrolled in state colleges as of 2022. Only Texas and California have more illegal aliens attending state colleges, with 56,535 illegal and 86,805 respectively.
Not only do these illegal aliens take the places of American citizens at public universities, but the in-state tuition rates they receive subsidize their education. For example, the 2024-2025 average cost for in-state tuition at the State University System of Florida is approximately $6,108. In contrast, the cost for out-of-state tuition cost at the University of Florida for the 2024-2025 academic year totals $28,658. In addition to substantial discount that citizens from other states do not even qualify for, further educational assistance is available to illegal aliens through various grants and scholarships. For example, the University of South Florida, a school within the State University System, has an entire page dedicated to various forms of financial aid resources for illegal aliens to use.
Granting in-state tuition to illegal aliens rewards illegal behavior and undermines the rule of law. When states offer benefits like these, prospective immigrants have little incentive to pursue the legal paths to immigration when they can sidestep the process and gain the same benefits. Moreover, federal law prohibits employers from hiring illegal aliens. Therefore, it makes no sense to expend tax dollars subsidizing their higher education.
Announcing his bill, State Senator Fine touted it as a commonsense measure to save money that could be put towards aiding the citizens of Florida. He described the bill as “a no-brainer way to reduce the size of the government and free up resources to help Floridians in need. We must put Floridians first, and I am proud to do my part to rebalance the scales for our citizens.”
Not all of Senator Fine’s colleagues were on board with his proposal, however. State Senator Kristen Arrington commented that for “my four years in the House, we had many students … come up and share their stories about how beneficial this has been … we’ll be fighting it.”
While half of the states and the District of Columbia allow illegal aliens to pay the in-state tuition rate, other states oppose it. Alabama, Georgia, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina have laws on the books that generally prohibit illegal aliens from receiving in-state tuition rates.
Like Florida, Texas is also seeking to repeal its in-state tuition law. Already, there are a number of prefiled bills in the Texas legislature, including H.B. 160, that would provide that aliens not authorized under federal law to be present in the U.S. shall not be considered “residents” for in-state tuition purposes.
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