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Students Win Cases to Allow Children of Immigrants to Pay In-State Tuition
By Catherine Groux
Posted September 07, 2012 11:00 AM
In some states, children of illegal immigrants now have access to in-state tuition.When Florida resident Noel Saucedo graduated from high school in 2010, he was eager to apply to college and earn a degree, The New York Times reports. Saucedo was offered a full scholarship to Miami Dade College, which he thought would put him one step closer to his academic goal. However, as he could not prove that his parents were legal U.S. citizens, his scholarship was reduced and his tuition was raised to that of an out-of-state student. This made the young man realize he could not afford to go to college full time like he hoped.
Saucedo was just one student affected by state regulations that define children of illegal immigrants as out-of-state residents, the Times reports. Under this status, these students cannot receive tuition breaks for living in the state, which means they often have to pay three times as much to earn a degree.
Knowing he had to take action, Saucedo and four other students partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center to bring a lawsuit against Florida education officials. Last week, the students' efforts paid off, as U.S. District Judge Michael Moore ruled that children of illegal immigrants should be eligible for in-state tuition if they meet the same residency requirements as their peers.
"The state regulations deny a benefit and create unique obstacles to attain public postsecondary public education for U.S. citizen children who would otherwise qualify for in-state tuition but for their parents' undocumented immigration status," Moore wrote, as quoted by Reuters.
In New Jersey, a similar conclusion was drawn on August 8, according to the Times. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, a student filed a lawsuit against the state, citing the fact that although she graduated high school with honors, she could not receive financial aid for the four-year college she was accepted to because her parents were not legal citizens.
The New Jersey state appeals court decided that the student is a citizen and had lived in the state for the appropriate amount of time. Alexander Shalom, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the student plans to apply for financial aid again next year.
"Here is a citizen being denied rights and privileges because of who her parent is," Shalom said. "We think that’s decidedly un-American."
