A law designed to allow illegal immigrants in New York to pay lower in-state tuition rates at the State and City University of New York systems has prompted an unusual lawsuit from three graduates of SUNY’s Binghamton campus, who say they were never told of the law and are now demanding thousands of dollars in tuition refunds. According to The New York Times, the plaintiffs are not illegal immigrants but New Jersey residents who attended a religious high school in New York and thereby became eligible, they say, for the tuition break. Like many such state laws, the New York statute helps illegal immigrants by tying the tuition benefit to their graduation from high schools in the state, but it doesn’t require them to have lived in the state, which forms the crux of the students’ argument. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, accuses SUNY of deceiving or, at best, confusing students about their eligibility for the benefit. The university told the Times it had not sought to mislead the students, but it said it does not offer tuition refunds retroactively.
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They not only need to refund these students’ tuition, if students were not specifically informed of the law when applying and registering, but also need to adjust tuition now at all NY state universities, as well as in other states that have this law. This should apply to all students who attended high school in NY, or in the other states, for whatever reason, if this law exists. It is not fair to only give preference to illegal immigrants.
When a student applies for instate residency, the rules should be clearly stated, and applied equally. It is illegal to preference illegal immigrants.
New York farmers rely on illegal migrant labor: long hours, hard work, low pay. This is a widely recognized fact, and came to even wider recognition a few months ago when the state legislature voted down a law to require that migrant workers be given the same protections as regular workers. It was voted down because if farmers in the Hudson Valley and elsewhere had to pay their workers even minimum wage they would go out of business.
To exploit these workers even further by treating their children as out-of-state students when/if they make it to college is absurd; it is also absurd for these privileged Jersey kids to be taking advantage of programs intended for those who are struggling financially and who have given so much to the state of NY.
dalcyanne: How are you so blatantly prejudiced against the “privileged Jersey kids” vs the poor struggling illegal immigrants? I assume these “Jersey kids” have parents who pay taxes, who work, and who support the schools/teachers in NY? Illegals’ “kids” have access to free education, free health care, food stamps, WIC, etc, and their parents aren’t even supposed to be here! Why, after soaking the system for their entire lives, do they now deserve instate tuition, and those who completed HS in NY don’t, going by the same law?
Cali and Dalcy, you both make good points but lets not get hung up on the immigrant status (legal or otherwise). I believe the issue is whether the NJ residents were eligible by the law and the article does a poor job of explaining that law. So it is really hard to even comment on this situation with out all the facts in place. Whatever you believe personally on how immigrants should be treated again legal or not really doesn’t matter. Now if Congress had only passed the DREAM Act, these kids who were brought here by their migrant working parents could have legal status and this situation would be a moot point.