University system finds fewer than 100 illegal immigrants
By Walter C. Jones
Morris News Service
Tuesday, July 13, 2010

ATLANTA --- There are fewer than 100 illegal immigrants attending Georgia's public colleges and universities, according to an estimate Tuesday from the University System of Georgia.


A firm number will be known Aug. 10, the deadline for all of the 35 schools to report to the Board of Regents, but a committee looking into how the colleges handle illegal immigrants is asking the schools to turn in their report sooner. The committee of five regents and five college presidents met Tuesday at Georgia Tech.

The question of illegal immigrants getting discounted, in-state tuition has become an issue in this year's campaigns. It arose after a traffic arrest revealed a Kennesaw State University student was getting the discount even though she immigrated to the U.S. as a child.

On Tuesday, university system staff presented their estimate along with an analysis showing the out-of-state tuition the illegal immigrants are supposed to be charged more than covers the actual costs of providing them an education.

At research institutions such as Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia and Georgia State University, the out-of-state tuition is $26,000 a year while the cost of providing an education is $18,000. The Medical College of Georgia's costs and tuition weren't included.

At regional schools such as Armstrong Atlantic State University and Augusta State University, the tuition is $17,000 while the cost is $11,000.

At two-year schools, tuition of $10,000 more than covers the $9,000 in costs.

Only five of the public colleges have more qualified applicants than they can admit: UGA, MCG, Georgia Tech, Georgia State and Georgia College & State University. For example, Georgia Tech has only 2,700 seats for freshmen but gets 14,000 applications, more than 80 percent of them qualified.

Still, Georgia Tech found only four illegal immigrants enrolled so far, all being charged out-of-state tuition, according to Kimberly Ballard-Washington, the university system's assistant vice chancellor for legal affairs.

UGA initially said it had 30, but that number has shrunk to 15, she said. Georgia State found 19.

University System Chancellor Erroll Davis told the committee he is eager to get specific information from those five schools about whether they have given a seat to an illegal immigrant when a Georgia student was qualified for it.

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