Arizona’s treasurer plans to investigate whether Arizona State University is breaking a new state law by providing private institutional aid to some of its students who are undocumented immigrants, according to The Arizona Republic.

Dean Martin, the treasurer and a former Republican state legislator, was the lead sponsor of a ballot measure, approved last fall, that bars illegal immigrants from paying in-state tuition at public colleges or receiving state-based financial aid, among other state services.

Arizona State officials said that no state money — only private donations — had been used for the scholarships received by undocumented immigrants. The state also did not pay for raising any of those funds because they were handled by the university’s nonprofit foundation, Virgil Renzulli, the university’s vice president for public affairs, told the Republic.

Last month a Joint Legislative Budget Committee report said that nearly 5,000 Arizonans had been denied state-based financial aid, turned down in efforts to pay cheaper in-state college tuition, or rejected from adult-education classes since the ballot measure took effect.

The issue of whether to provide public aid to illegal immigrants has long been the subject of controversy in Arizona. —Sara Hebel