DOJ Sues More States Over In-State Tuition For Illegal Aliens

Authored by Cully Stimson & Hans von Spakovsky via The Epoch Times,

Attention, all parents and college students worried about the ever-rising cost of college tuition. The Department of Justice has finally—after three decades—started enforcing the federal law that prohibits states from offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens unless they also offer in-state tuition to everyone else—including all citizen students from out of state.

The law it’s enforcing has existed since 1996, when Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.

Buried inside that huge law was Section 505, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1623, which prohibits state colleges and universities from providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens “on the basis of residence within the State” unless the same in-state rates are offered to all citizens of the United States.

In English, that means that states that offer in-state tuition to illegal aliens also have to offer in-state tuition to everyone. That means you!

Section 505 is still the law of the land—as we wrote back in 2011.

But the problem is that the law did not include a private right of action, meaning everyday individuals could not sue and win. Only the U.S. government, through the Department of Justice, could sue states and universities to enforce the plain language of the law.

So, the law sat like a Caryatid for over three decades, staring out into space, standing tall, but supporting nothing except higher tuition costs for American citizens who have been subsidizing the tuition of illegal aliens.

That was true until recently.

Earlier this month, we wrote about how under the leadership of Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ successfully sued Texas for offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens while charging non-Texan American students higher rates. Texas waved the white flag immediately and settled the case by entering into a consent decree to correct the illegal practice.

High off its easy win, the department has embarked on a state-by-state crusade, filing complaints against Kentucky on June 17 and Minnesota on June 25 for the same blatant violation of federal law. Both states offer in-state tuition to illegal aliens while demanding higher out-of-state tuition from American citizens who reside elsewhere.

These price differences aren’t trivial.

According to one figure, the average cost of in-state tuition and fees at a public four-year college in Kentucky is $11,299. That’s only 3.71 percent higher than the national average for a public college. But the average cost of out-of-state tuition and fees at a public four-year college in Kentucky is $26,640, more than twice as much.

Let’s look at Minnesota. According to the same source, Gov. Tim Walz‘s favorite constituents—illegal aliens who attend a four-year public college—only pay in-state tuition and fees of $12,873. An out-of-state American citizen dreaming of college in the Gopher State can expect more than double that price: an average of $26,719.

Think about it this way: an illegal alien from Mexico or Somalia living in Minnesota gets a better deal at a Minnesota state four-year college than a straight-A student from Michigan or Wisconsin, unless, of course, the out-of-state student gets a scholarship or a tuition discount.

How is that fair? It’s not.

Where We Want Bondi to Go Next

While the recent lawsuits against Minnesota and Kentucky are a great start, other states are also actively violating federal law by offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens while not offering the same to out-of-state students. The scofflaws are Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Nebraska, New Mexico, Kansas, Illinois, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York.

All these should be addressed—but here are Heritage’s top three picks for the DOJ to target next.

Maryland

Gov. Wes Moore’s state makes the short list of states the DOJ should haul into court. Maryland’s universities have favored illegal aliens since 2011, when the state passed a law allowing them to pay in-state tuition for community colleges.

The Maryland DREAM Act, enacted in 2012, spells out the requirements for in-state tuition for illegals. Here are just a few of the requirements:

• Attend a Maryland public or private high school for at least one year; or

• Graduate from a Maryland high school or receive a Maryland high school diploma or equivalent diploma, like a GED; or

• File Maryland income tax returns for the last three years.

Regardless of these Maryland-specific requirements, the act still violates federal laws because Maryland does not give in-state tuition to residents of other states.

Annual in-state tuition and fees for a public four-year university in Maryland average $10,041. The price for a Virginia citizen resident—who can easily drive across the Potomac River to get to Maryland—is a whopping $26,721.

For many families, the difference between tuition of $10k per year versus $26k per year is the difference between attending college and not attending college.

How many illegal aliens are enrolled in higher education in Maryland? A stunning 11,675.

If every illegal alien student enrolled in a public college of higher education in the state of Maryland pays in-state tuition (which they don’t, as many get tuition breaks on top of in-state tuition), then the taxpayers of Maryland and the out-of-state students pick up the slack, which amounts to roughly $194,739,000.

In a state that faces a $3 billion budget gap and spends almost $6 billion on higher education, that’s a significant subsidy.

Colorado

This rocky mountain state, as beautiful as it is, has some ugly numbers when it comes to giving tuition benefits to illegal aliens in violation of Section 505.

The Centennial State advertises a somewhat reasonable average in-state tuition of $9,798 for four-year public colleges. Expensive, yes, but justifiable in exchange for the scenic views and the University of Colorado system. The picturesque mountains get a bit harder to justify at $32,476, the average annual price for out-of-state students.

Colorado has tweaked their state law with respect to how a resident illegal alien can qualify for in-state tuition. The latest revision to Colorado’s law came in 2022 with the passage of HB22-1155, which “remove[d] several barriers that prevented thousands of undocumented high school students from qualifying for in-state tuition rates and in-state financial aid.”

Under the new law, a resident illegal alien qualifies for in-state tuition and in-state financial aid if:

• He attended a Colorado high school for at least a year, or

• Graduated from a Colorado high school.

The student is not timebound as to when he or she must attend college, but he or she must be physically present in Colorado for one year before attending. How those strictures are verified or enforced is anyone’s guess.

The new law means that a California student whose family moved to Colorado the day after his high school graduation will pay 231 percent more than an illegal alien from El Salvador or Mexico who graduated from a Colorado high school after sneaking into the country.

Illinois

Home of the Windy City, deep blue Illinois and Gov. JB Pritzker are next on our DOJ lawsuit list.

With annual average tuition and fees at a four-year public college at $14,921, Illinoisans take a bigger hit than in-state applicants in other states looking to stay local. The state has the sixth most expensive public school tuition rate in the country.

But anyone else in the nation wanting to go to the Prairie State for college also better start saving early, as the out-of-state tuition and fees for a four-year public college average $30,027 a year.

Illinois’s higher education system actively educates 27,672 illegal alien students. With a difference of about $15k between in- and out-of-state tuition, this population costs the state a whopping $418,013,232.

Let’s put these numbers into perspective.

In 1911, it cost $250,000 to build Wrigley Field. Adjusting for inflation, this would be the equivalent to about $7.85 million in 2024.

You could build 53 Wrigley Fields, rent out the stadiums on opening day, buy everyone in the stadiums a hot dog, and still have money left over with the amount the state subsidizes illegal aliens yearly via in-state college tuition.

In 2003, Illinois Public Act 093-0007 gave eligible illegal alien students access to in-state tuition. Signed by Pritzker last August, the newest legislation made some changes to existing law, but for all intents and purposes, it remains just as illegal. Both make it impossible for anyone other than an in-state citizen or an illegal alien to receive discounted tuition.

The number of requirements imposed on in-state individuals to qualify for in-state tuition doesn’t matter. The only way a state law that offers in-state tuition for resident illegal aliens can comply with Section 505 is if the law offers in-state tuition rates for all students from any state.

Section 505 Is Not Anti-Immigrant

Let’s make one thing clear. Section 505 is not anti-immigration—nor is it designed by the alt-right to keep the illegal aliens in our country hopelessly uneducated.

The statute does not prohibit universities from offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens. If a state wants to do that at its public colleges and universities, it is free to do so. Section 505 only mandates that when billing for tuition, states treat out-of-state U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents the same as illegal aliens.

States that offer in-state tuition (or make financial aid or scholarships available) to illegal aliens take finite resources away from other students, both in-state and out-of-state. That forces the state’s taxpayers—and the parents of U.S. citizen students from other states—to cover the difference.

Every family who has sent a child to college knows what it feels like to pay for tuition. As costs go up and up, seemingly for no reason, families are understandably frustrated. And when the reason is that they’re subsidizing the college education of illegal aliens, this goes from frustrating to infuriating.

The DOJ’s lawsuits are a step in the right direction to enforce existing federal law and hopefully bring a touch of sanity to the college tuition racket.

That’s a matter of fundamental fairness to American citizens. It’s about time!

Reprinted by permission from The Daily Signal, a publication of The Heritage Foundation.