Thread: State Puts a Precise Cost on Helping Illegal Immigrant Stude

State Puts a Precise Cost on Helping Illegal Immigrant Students

nytimes.com
By Fernanda Santos
Dec. 8, 2011, 4:31 p.m.

Any calculation over how much New York State would spend annually if it were to provide college tuition assistance to illegal immigrants amounts to an educated guess.

In the bill it sent to the Legislature on Thursday, the state’s Education Department offered its best estimate: $627,428.

The number, though specific, is an extrapolation. But it is also so low when compared to other expenses the state has, in education and otherwise, that the bill’s chief supporters — the education commissioner, John B. King Jr., and the Board of Regents chancellor, Merryl H. Tisch — hope it will help mollify some of the opposition the bill is bound to face.

Here is how the figure was reached.

The National Immigration Law Center estimates that 65,000 children of illegal immigrants graduate from high schools in the United States each year. The state Education Department assumes that 7 percent of them, or 4,550 students, graduate from high school in New York.

Of those, 5 percent, or 227 students, will choose to attend public colleges in New York, the bill assumes. The average cost per student for the state’s tuition assistance program in the last school year was $2,764. Multiply that by 227 and, voilá!

In a memorandum of support for the bill, Richard J. Trautwein, deputy commissioner for legal affairs for the state’s Education Department, argues that the cost will be offset, at least in part, by increased income tax revenues “generated by affording this population the opportunity to complete college and obtain higher-paying jobs,â€

I believe this as much as I believe that IAs don't vote.

We shouldn't spend a damned penny on illegals. Period!

227? Now that's a joke because almost that many, if not more, Chinese IA kids graduate from NYC's top five HS's each year and you know they're going to college.

In the bill it sent to the Legislature on Thursday, the state’s Education Department offered its best estimate: $627,428.

Almost everytime we hear government officials state the cost of something it is almost always understated. Happens frequently in my state.

Originally Posted by Jean

In the bill it sent to the Legislature on Thursday, the state’s Education Department offered its best estimate: $627,428.

Almost everytime we hear government officials state the cost of something it is almost always understated. Happens frequently in my state.

It's easy for them to do, just remove one or two digits and claim a decimal point was some how misplaced.

Did we estimate 227? Turned out to be 2,270 or 22,700.

$6,274,280 or $62,742,800 - See, just a slight miscalculation.

In our state we have a constitutional provision that says they must balance the budget. How they get around it is just by 'estimating' an amount of revenue expected which to everyone's surprise turns out to be way lower than their 'estimate.' Such a sham!