The price of paying for a college education in California has come into question. The reason -- undocumented immigrants pay the same for tuition as in-state students, according to a report by the
Federation for American Immigration Reform.
The class action lawsuit finds 42 students from 19 different states attending public colleges in California who claim the state violated federal law by making them pay higher tuition than other non-California residents who got a financial break.
The $3.5 billion class action lawsuit was filed in Yolo County, California against the three governing entities that run California's public universities and colleges. The suit charges that policies enacted in 2001, grant in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens attending public institutions of higher education, while denying those same benefits to out-of-state U.S. citizens.
Under legislation approved by the California legislature in 2001 and signed by former Governor Gray Davis, illegal aliens who have attended a high school in the state for at least three years are eligible to receive taxpayer subsidized in-state tuition at California State universities and community colleges.
In Arizona, undocumented immigrants attending public colleges and/or universities must comply with
Proposition 300. To qualify for in-state tuition and state financial assistance, students must provide documentation as proof of lawful presence in the United States. Acceptable documents include a birth certificate, an Arizona driver license or ID card issued after 1996, and official immigration papers.
The University of California Board of Regents administratively extended the same benefits to illegal aliens attending the top tier University of California campuses.
Out-of-state students at the ten University of California schools pay an average of $24,589 per year, while the average in-state tuition cost is $6,769 per year.
A 1996 federal law,
8 U.S.C ยง 1623, explicitly states that no state may grant resident status to an illegal alien living in that state and attending a public college or university unless the state grants the same benefit to all out-of-state students attending those public colleges or universities.
The plaintiffs also contend that the California policy also violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. constitution.
An estimated 60,000 U.S. citizen students, on more than 150 campuses around the state are being forced to pay higher tuition rates than those afforded to illegal aliens under California's illegal policy.
The suit seeks to force the state to reimburse these U.S. citizen students for the additional tuition they were forced to pay in violation of federal law. That amount is estimated to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
