The lawsuits could change what some undocumented students pay for college, including students in California. Here’s what the legal fight means for families and college affordability.
For years, the path to college for some undocumented students has followed a familiar script.
They grew up in the United States. They went to local elementary and high schools. They played sports, learned English, graduated with their classmates and, eventually, applied to the same public universities as everyone else.
But for some of those students, the price of that education could soon depend on something that has little to do with where they grew up: their immigration status.
The Trump administration is challenging state laws that allow certain undocumented students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. On August 27, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, bringing the number of states facing federal lawsuits over these policies to 21.
The lawsuits do not mean that students in all 21 states are suddenly being charged out-of-state tuition. The cases are still moving through the courts, and the outcomes vary by state. But if the federal government succeeds, students who currently qualify for resident tuition could face substantially higher bills.
In some states, the difference can amount to tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a degree.
For Latino families, the stakes are particularly significant.
A question of who counts as a resident
The dispute centers on a federal law passed in 1996. The Justice Department argues that the law prohibits states from giving undocumented students preferential access to higher education benefits based on state residence when those same benefits are not available to U.S. citizens who live in other states.
The department’s position is that states cannot effectively say that an undocumented student qualifies for resident tuition simply because that student has lived and attended school there.
The states have a different interpretation.
Their policies generally do not simply ask whether a student is undocumented. Instead, they set requirements such as attending a certain number of years of high school in the state, graduating from a state high school or meeting other educational requirements.
In New Mexico, for example, the law challenged by the federal government allows students who have attended a secondary school in the state for at least one year and graduated from a New Mexico high school or obtained a high school equivalency credential there to receive resident tuition regardless of immigration status.
That distinction is at the heart of the fight.
The federal government sees an immigration based benefit.
States and immigrant advocates see a tuition policy based on where a student was educated and has built a life.
The price of losing in state tuition
The difference between the two tuition rates is not symbolic.
Public universities typically charge residents substantially less than students classified as nonresidents. The gap varies by institution, but in some states it can exceed $20,000 or $30,000 a year.
That means a legal change could turn a college that was barely affordable into one that is financially out of reach.
For a student whose family is already living on a tight budget, an additional $20,000 a year is not simply a higher tuition bill. It can mean taking on more debt, working longer hours, attending a community college instead, choosing a different university or abandoning college altogether.
And the consequences could extend beyond the classroom.
A degree can determine access to higher paying jobs, professional licenses and careers that offer greater economic stability. Making college more expensive for students who are already financially vulnerable could therefore affect their earning potential for years.
Why Latino students are at the center of the story
The policies are not exclusively Latino policies, and not every Latino student is affected.
But research suggests that tuition equity policies have had a particularly strong effect on Latino students who are foreign born and not U.S. citizens.
The National Immigration Law Center cites research finding that in state tuition policies increase college enrollment among students likely to be undocumented, including Latino foreign born noncitizens.
Another study found that foreign born noncitizen Latino students living in states with tuition equity policies were substantially more likely to enroll in college after those policies were implemented than comparable students in states without them.
That makes the current legal battle more than a fight over a line on a university bill.
It is also a fight over whether policies that helped make college accessible to a generation of young people will remain in place.
The students caught in the middle
Consider the position of a student who arrived in the United States as a child.
They may have spent 10 or 15 years in the same state. Their parents may work there. Their siblings may have been born there. Their entire education may have taken place in American schools.
From the student’s perspective, there may be little that feels temporary about their connection to the state.
Then college arrives.
Under the state’s current rules, that student may qualify for the same tuition rate as classmates whose families have lived there for generations.
Under the federal government’s interpretation of the law, however, the student’s immigration status could prevent the state from offering that benefit.
That creates a contradiction that is difficult to explain to a teenager: You can be a resident for almost every practical purpose, but not necessarily when the university calculates what you owe.
