From the issue dated December 10, 2004
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Illegal Immigrants Rarely Use Hard-Won Tuition BreakSome states offer in-state rates, but students still have trouble paying
Most high-school students sign up for Advanced Placement classes to get a head start in college course work. For Rodolfo Salazar, they were a substitute for a college education he feared was out of his reach. As an illegal immigrant, Mr. Salazar -- who was born in Mexico and crossed the border with his family shortly before his 10th birthday -- could not qualify for in-state tuition rates or student aid in Texas, where he earned solid grades at Houston's Lee High School. And his mother, a janitor, could not afford out-of-state tuition, which was triple that paid by Texas residents. "I wanted to make the most of my experience," says Mr. Salazar, now a soft-spoken 21-year-old. Taking the AP classes "made me feel a little less rejected." Fortunately for Mr. Salazar, in June 2001, just as he was graduating from high school, the Texas Legislature passed a law extending in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants who had attended a high school in the state for at least three years, provided they signed an affidavit pledging to seek permanent residency. The reduced tuition and a pair of scholarships made it possible for Mr. Salazar to attend the University of Houston, where he is now a junior majoring in business. Since Texas became the first state to provide in-state tuition benefits to its high-school graduates who are not legal residents, seven other states, including Illinois and New York, have passed similar laws. The issue has been the topic of debate in recent years in 21 additional state legislatures, as well as in Congress. While supporters of the measures say they open the doors of higher education to those who need it most, critics argue that the policies are a giveaway of taxpayer dollars. Indeed in Kansas, the most recent state to enact the in-state-tuition legislation, opponents have filed a lawsuit charging that it violates the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as well as a 1996 immigration law. But lost within the rancor is the simple fact that few students who qualify for the lower tuition rates are actually taking advantage of them. In some cases, immigrant students lack the academic preparation needed for college. In others, even the in-state tuition rate is too high for such students, and financial-aid programs are still largely closed off to them. What's more, many illegal immigrants are simply unaware of the programs. Only about 30 illegal immigrants registered for resident tuition at Kansas institutions this fall, far short of the 370 anticipated. Of the 348 students taking advantage of Washington's cheaper fees this semester, nearly one-third are international students on temporary visas. Texas seems to be the exception. Some 6,500 students have attended colleges through the law, though even the program there got off to a slow start. "When these laws were being debated, a lot of the opponents spun a doomsday scenario in which state universities would be inundated with illegal immigrants sucking money out of the state treasury," says Travis J. Reindl, director of state policy analysis at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "The experience is, if anything, demand for these programs is smaller than expected." A Guide Is Needed Like Mr. Salazar, Gabriel (who asked that his last name not be used because he fears repercussions if he publicly reveals his immigration status) thought Lee High School would be the end of his academic career. Then one day David Johnston, the school's college counselor, cornered him between classes. He wanted to know why Gabriel, now 21, had not taken the SAT. "I really believed there was no option," says Gabriel, who came to the United States from Mexico City as a toddler. Like many immigrant students, he has been waiting for years -- in his case since before the 2001 terrorist attacks -- for his legal-residency application to work through the federal backlog. Today Gabriel is a sophomore majoring in social work at Texas Southern University. He is one of many improbable success stories at Lee, an inner-city high school where 95 percent of the 2,100 students receive free or reduced-cost lunches. A quarter are illegal immigrants, whose families crossed the border without documents or overstayed a visa. Ninety-four percent are members of minority groups. Last year 23 percent of Mr. Johnston's seniors went on to a four-year college; an additional 31 percent headed for a community or technical college. Undocumented immigrants have been a presence in American schools since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982, in Plyler v. Doe, that all children, regardless of immigration status, were entitled to a free elementary and secondary education. Profiles of Every Senior The next generation fills Mr. Johnston's counseling center, researching college options or refining admissions essays on a half-dozen computers. To make higher education a reality for as many of Lee's students as possible, Mr. Johnston compiles extensive profiles of each senior, including academic standing, financial means, and immigration status. He is, in his own word, "creative" in devising ways for Lee's graduates to go on to college. A future teacher may be directed to cosmetology school, a moneymaking detour that will make four-year college financially feasible one day. Hispanic students, who make up 77 percent of Lee's student body, may end up at historically black colleges, which are eager to bestow full scholarships on Mr. Johnston's academic superstars. "I tell them there are many, many doors that all go to the same room -- college," he says. These days, when Mr. Johnston's telephone rings, the parents and teachers on the other end of the line are often from high schools hundreds of miles from Houston seeking advice on Texas' tuition break for illegal immigrants. Mr. Johnston's expertise in the law is known through his effort to put the legislation into place and through interviews he has given to the state's Spanish-language news media. Both Mr. Johnston and his counterpart in the Austin school district, Alejandra Rincon, say that even three years after the measure became law, eligible students, particularly in rural districts, are failing to take advantage of the benefit. Many simply don't know it exists; those who do lack an informed guide. "Those students are going unserved," Ms. Rincon says. Navigating the admissions and financial-aid process for illegal immigrants "requires some knowledge," she says. "It requires more work." In Texas and the other seven states, outreach has been on an ad hoc basis. Information is featured prominently in the admissions material of some colleges and in the fine print of others. In many instances, nonprofit organizations, like Kansas City's El Centro social-service group, have taken the lead, reaching out to high-school guidance counselors, college recruiters, and religious congregations. And while some institutions, like Oklahoma City Community College, are focusing on students in middle school or younger in their recruitment efforts, staff members at other institutions, like the administrator at one Texas college who initially refused to provide in-state tuition to a student because he lacked proper immigration documents, remain unversed in the laws. "It can be a challenge for those people on the front lines," says Rose Ann Blanco, director of the Houston branch of an educational-service center run by the League of United Latin American Citizens, a civil-rights group. Other Obstacles Immigration status isn't the only obstacle for these students. Even with reduced tuition rates, a college education may be unattainable for families trying to get by on minimum-wage jobs. Federal law forbids illegal immigrant students from receiving federal loans and grants; work-study jobs are also out of the question. Of the eight states with in-state tuition laws on their books, only two, Texas and Oklahoma, offer state financial aid to illegal immigrants. A third, Utah, allows the students to qualify for only one of its aid programs. Because of their lower cost, community colleges tend to far outpace four-year institutions in enrolling undocumented immigrants. Twenty-two of the 30 students enrolled this fall under Kansas' new law are attending two-year colleges. In Texas, where a credit hour costs $33 at a community college and $106 at a four-year university, more than 75 percent of the illegal immigrant students taking advantage of the tuition break attend the two-year programs. "Realistically, tuition is still very high," says Sue Storm, a Democrat in the Kansas House of Representatives who sponsored the state's law. And thinking a college education was out of their reach, many of these students are academically unprepared for college, higher-education officials say. They have not taken classes like calculus, and many attend poor, understaffed urban schools that do not offer the variety of AP courses of their suburban counterparts. "They have what I would call built-in headwinds that militate against going to college," says Michael A. Olivas, a University of Houston law professor who helped write the Texas law. Concern Over Privacy In some states, specific provisions in the laws may depress enrollment. Oklahoma, for instance, collects data on undocumented immigrant students, and college officials say that discourages some eligible students from applying to college for fear of publicly revealing their status. State officials say the data will be used only to monitor the success of the law. Still, Gloria Cardenas Barton, registrar and dean of admissions at Oklahoma City Community College, admits to some unease as she separates the roughly 85 qualifying immigrant students into a distinct category in the college computer system. "It's an uncomfortable process, openly identifying students whose status is not legal," she says. "I feel a certain guardianship of the records." Those fears are not without basis. In 2002, after Jesus Apodaca, an 18-year-old illegal immigrant from Colorado, was quoted in a newspaper article about the fight for in-state tuition benefits there, U.S. Rep. Thomas G. Tancredo, a Republican, tried to have Mr. Apodaca and his family deported. Partly in response to the Apodaca case, Colorado's General Assembly earlier this year considered legislation blocking public colleges from charging in-state tuition to students in the state illegally. Although the Colorado bill died, there seems to be a push back to offering resident tuition to illegal immigrants in other states. In addition to the Kansas court challenge, some Arizona lawmakers hope to build on the success of a recent ballot initiative that denies public benefits to illegal immigrants by promoting legislation to block the state from offering college tuition breaks. The California Republican Assembly, a conservative organization, is working to collect enough signatures to put a proposition on the ballot prohibiting people not in that state legally from qualifying for any government aid. "It's a twisted system that gives a benefit to someone who breaks the law," Mike Spence, the group's president, says of California's in-state-tuition law. Waiting on Congress Even so, the majority of the 21 states that have considered resident-tuition measures have recently sought to extend the benefit to illegal immigrants. Only two states, Mississippi and Alaska, have forbidden public colleges from spending state funds on tuition benefits for immigrants without legal documents. (One other state, Virginia, passed legislation prohibiting illegal immigrants from receiving resident tuition, but it was vetoed by Gov. Mark R. Warner, a Democrat.) While in-state tuition proposals that deal with immigrant students are likely to be introduced again when legislatures convene early next year, many states are waiting for action by the federal government. Congress recessed this year without taking action on the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors, known as the Dream Act, which would make students who live in the country for at least five years eligible for federal student aid. States would have the option to provide in-state tuition benefits under the proposal. Most critically, the Dream Act would permit qualified students to become temporary legal residents, putting them on the path to permanent legal status. The Dream Act's sponsor, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, is expected to reintroduce the measure next year, but it is unclear how the legislation will fare. Groups on both sides are waiting to see how the Bush administration, which has been publicly silent, weighs in on the bill. Unless the Dream Act is passed, illegal immigrant students and their families are making "a leap of faith," says Josh Bernstein, a senior policy analyst at the National Immigration Law Center. With no certainty of legal status after graduation, many immigrant parents may be hesitant to pay even reduced tuition to send their children to college. Despite a college degree, they could end up back where they began, working in the underground economy because private companies rarely hire illegal immigrants. Mr. Salazar, the University of Houston student, will be among the first classes of students to graduate under Texas' resident-tuition law. But he knows his dreams of starting an investment club may have to be put on hold. "I'm not pessimistic, but I try to be realistic," Mr. Salazar says. "What if the Dream Act doesn't pass? I'm going to be left holding a diploma." He pauses. "But it won't be a waste. What I'm getting is invaluable."
A TUITION BREAK FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
Since Texas passed the first law offering in-state tuition to illegal immigrants in June 2001, a handful of states have moved to offer similar rates.
To receive the tuition breaks in red-colored states above, students must meet various criteria, including, in each case, signing an affidavit pledging to seek permanent residence in the United States. Other components of the laws include:
http://chronicle.com Section: Government & Politics Volume 51, Issue 16, Page A19 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Copyright © 2004 by The Chronicle of Higher Education