Nearly 5,000 people in Arizona have been denied state-based financial aid, turned down in efforts to pay cheaper in-state college tuition, or rejected from adult-education classes since a voter-enacted measure barring illegal immigrants from receiving those services took effect on January 1, The Arizona Republic reported today.

A new Joint Legislative Budget Committee report says that 1,500 students at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona were denied financial aid or in-state financial status because they could not prove their legal status. An additional 1,790 community-college students statewide were blocked. And 1,403 out of 11,931 applicants for state adult education, more than 10 percent, were rejected.

The report provides the first snapshot of how many people applied for and were rejected from state-subsidized programs because of their legal status — long a controversial issue in the state. Before voters passed the ballot measure, Proposition 300, public colleges and other state agencies did not collect information about students’ legal status.

But, as the Republic notes, the report may not accurately reflect Proposition 300’s impact because it does not take into account the number of people who were discouraged from even applying for college or other programs because of their legal status. —Karin Fischer