http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 94,00.html


From the Magazine | Education
Who Gets the Break?
Should illegal immigrants qualify for in-state college tuition? Inside a brewing controversy
By JEFF CHU
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR

Posted Sunday, Jul. 03, 2005
"Pamela" would like you to know that she loves art. That she would have got honors at her graduation from Marlborough High School in Marlborough, Mass., last month, except for a slip on her Algebra II final. That she would go to the Massachusetts College of Art this fall, but her restaurant-worker parents can't pay the nearly $18,000 tuition. And that the tuition would cost just $6,400 if state legislators approved a bill to allow students like her, an illegal immigrant, to pay in-state rates at Massachusetts' public colleges and universities.

Pamela, who arrived with her family from Chile in 2000 and does not wish to reveal her real name, is one of an estimated 50,000 to 65,000 illegal immigrants who got diplomas from U.S. high schools this spring. They graduated into a furor over in-state tuition, one of the fiercest debates over immigration policy today. Illegal aliens can qualify for in-state tuition rates in nine states, including Texas, Kansas and California. But a lawsuit challenging Kansas' law and the failure of legislatures to approve similar policies in 18 other states this year reflect widespread unease about such benefits. Proponents in most of those 18 states plan to try again next session. Massachusetts' bill is still alive, but Governor Mitt Romney has said he will veto it. Pamela remains hopeful: "All I want is an opportunity to become somebody." Should the state subsidize her efforts?

Surprisingly, money is not the big issue. In Texas, which in 2001 became the first state to grant such tuition benefits, fewer than 8,000 undocumented immigrants--out of a public college population of more than 1 million--got reduced rates last year. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors tighter immigration rules, says it is more a matter of principle: "Extending in-state tuition is a way of legitimizing their presence. It is back-door amnesty."

Education is a tricky battleground. "There's an emotion to it that makes it different from day laborers hanging out in front of the Home Depot," says Krikorian. In North Carolina an in-state-tuition bill died in committee in May after talk radio helped stir a furor "one hundred times bigger than Terri Schiavo," in the words of Kevin Miller, a host at WPTF in Raleigh. Many listeners were worried that expanded in-state rates would not only suck up taxpayer dollars but would also make it harder for their kids to get into top state schools like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Opponents also fear that extending one privilege would open the door to granting other benefits now reserved for legal residents. "The other side is afraid this is the beginning of something more," says Josh Bernstein, of the National Immigration Law Center.


Both sides blame the Federal Government for embroiling states in this debate. In 1982 the Supreme Court ruled that states must educate illegal immigrants through the 12th grade. But what then? A 1996 federal law prohibits state-level "residency based" benefits for illegal immigrants unless they are available to all U.S. citizens--in other words, to out-of-state residents too. So states crafted rules that aren't based on residency. To qualify for in-state rates at public colleges in Kansas, for example, you must spend three years in the state's high schools. University of Missouri--Kansas City law professor Kris Kobach, counsel for 24 out-of-state students challenging the law, says this still violates the federal statute as well as the Constitution's equal-protection clause by "discriminating against U.S. citizens." Says plaintiff Heidi Hydeman, an Iowan who paid out-of-state fees (now $12,691 a year, vs. $4,737 in-state) to attend K.U.: "It's just not fair." A judge is expected to rule this month.

Congress could clear this legal thicket by approving the proposed Dream Act, which would repeal the federal residency-rule ban and grant temporary legal status to undocumented graduates of U.S. high schools. But despite bipartisan support, the bill has failed to get to the floor in the past two sessions of Congress. "The Federal Government hasn't shown much interest in sending [illegal immigrants] home," says Sue Storm, sponsor of the Kansas bill. "It's in all our best interests for them to be educated." Opponents don't buy that brand of pragmatism. "It's so politically correct to say, 'Oh, these poor people have dreams!' Well, we all have dreams," says Lorrie Hall, founder of the Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform. "They are taking places from Americans--and we have to subsidize them."

Whatever happens in Massachusetts, Pamela wants to stay in the country she sees as her home. She isn't sure what she will do if she doesn't go to college. She can't work legally, though she might do some baby sitting. But her long-term plan is clear. "I'd like to become an American citizen," she says. That would be one way to solve the tuition problem. --With reporting by Bud Norman/Wichita