Georgia Senate Higher Education Committee

Hearing for Senate Bill 44

February 10, 2015

Testimony by Dr. Laura Emiko Soltis, Executive Director of Freedom University

Good afternoon Senator Orrock, Chairman Millar, and distinguished members of the Committee.
My name is Laura Emiko Soltis. I would like to thank the Georgia Senate Higher Education
Committee for this opportunity to share my perspective as an educator of undocumented students.
I am also addressing this committee as a proud alumna of the University of Georgia, where I
graduated as a Foundation Fellow in 2006.
For the past two years, I have taught and mentored undocumented students at Freedom
University, which is a modern freedom school that provides tuition-free, college-level classes for
undocumented students in Georgia. Freedom U was founded following the passage of Georgia
Board of Regents Policy 4.1.6, which bans undocumented students from the top five public
universities, and Policy 4.3.4, which prohibits them from qualifying for in-state tuition rates to
all Georgia public universities. My testimony today will detail the economic, moral, social, and
educational reasons why this committee should fully support Senate Bill 44.
My students are intelligent, hard working, and civically engaged young people who are deeply
committed to their education. As an educator, I can attest that these young people are absolutely
the kinds of students we want in our classrooms. But I am not the only one who recognizes their
potential: top tier universities around the country are eagerly recruiting talented undocumented
students from Georgia. In fact, one out of every five students who enters Freedom University
leaves with a full merit scholarship to a college out of state. By setting up barriers to higher
education, we are effectively creating a brain drain in Georgia. We are losing future highly
skilled workers, entrepreneurs, and middle class consumers and taxpayers, who will grow the
economies of other states. We are losing future artists, writers, and musicians, who will enrich
the culture and quality of life in other states. Ultimately, creating barriers to higher education
hurts everyone in Georgia.
The motto of the University System of Georgia is to create a more educated Georgia. The
current in-state tuition ban, however, undermines this goal: it creates an unequal and less
educated Georgia. It is fiscally irresponsible and morally unacceptable, and by discriminating
against and punishing young people, it damages Georgias reputation on national and
international levels. Senate Bill 44, however, is a crucial first step in creating a more equal, more
just, and more educated Georgia.
Excluding Undocumented Students from In-State Tuition Rates is Fiscally Irresponsible.
Under U.S. federal law (Plyler v. Doe, 1982), all students are entitled to a K-12 public education,
regardless of their citizenship or residency status. By making higher education out of reach for
undocumented students, we fail to capitalize on taxpayers previous investment in their K-12


education, which is estimated at $100,000 per student in the United States.i Contrary to the
Georgia Board of Regents justifications for passing the in-state tuition ban, undocumented
students do not take away seats from Georgians or place a burden on Georgia taxpayers. In
fact, most undocumented students in the state have been raised and educated in Georgia, and
they and their parents are Georgia taxpayers. Guaranteeing in-state tuition for undocumented
students is not about special treatment: it is about fair and equal treatment.
Undocumented students are assets, not liabilities, for our state. With the University System of
Georgia closing schools due to low enrollment and spending taxpayer dollars trying to attract a
diverse student body, we should be recruiting, not banning, undocumented students. Lets do the
math. In 2010, the Georgia Board of Regents commissioned a study that revealed that 501 of the
310,000 students in the University System of Georgia were undocumented, or roughly 0.16
percent of the student body. The study also confirmed that every single one of those students was
paying out-of-state tuition rates. We can reasonably assume that undocumented student
enrollment would have been significantly higher had in-state tuition been available. Between
1990 and 2008, Georgia experienced more than a 200 percent growth in its immigrant population,
more than half of which was undocumented.ii As a result of these rapidly changing demographics,
immigration experts in Georgia estimate that roughly 3,000 undocumented students graduate
from Georgia high schools every year. If just one-third of these students were to attend a
Georgia public university such as UGA with in-state tuition, Georgia would gain roughly $10
million annually in tuition revenues alone. This number would increase exponentially if we
consider similar enrollment rates for the tens of thousands of undocumented students who have
already graduated high school, but who havent enrolled in Georgia universities due to their
inability to afford out-of-state tuition. The numbers are clear: Georgias in-state tuition ban is
bad fiscal policy.
Excluding Undocumented Students from In-State Tuition Rates is morally unacceptable.
Like many undocumented students, most students at Freedom University were brought to the
United States before they were five years old and have attended Georgia public schools from
kindergarten through 12th grade. These policies are effectively punishing an entire generation of
young people based on the decisions and actions of their parents. Moreover, we must recognize
that their parents decisions to migrate were made for the same reasons why generations of
immigrants came before them: to leave behind political violence and poverty, to secure a better
life for their children, to simply survive. What does it say about our moral values when we
punish children for the actions of their parents?
When Georgia is at its best, our public policies reflect our shared moral values. The current instate tuition ban is an affront to those values. It shows that in Georgia, we exclude our neighbor,
rather than love our neighbor.
Banning Undocumented Students Damages Georgias Reputation. Georgia is the only state
in the country to implement both an admissions ban and an in-state tuition ban against
undocumented students. Meanwhile, 21 states have passed legislation or issued decisions by state
boards of education to allow undocumented students to qualify for in-state tuition rates.
Today in Georgia, undocumented students can legally obtain a work permit and a drivers license
through their DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival) status. However, by banning
undocumented students from the top five universities and barring them economically from all


universities through the in-state tuition ban, we have essentially recreated a social system in
which certain groups of people can drive to low-wage jobs, but be denied equal access to
education and the right to vote. It is telling that the universities that now ban undocumented
students, who are overwhelming people of color of Latin American, Asian, and Afro-Caribbean
descent, were also institutions that banned African-American students in 1960. Through its
discriminatory policies toward undocumented youth, Georgia is effectively resegregating public
higher education and deepening racial inequalities in the Deep South.
In addition to our peaches, our Braves, and our two Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Atlanta is also
becoming known for our economic inequality. In 2014, the Brookings Institute identified Atlanta
as the city with the widest 95/20 income distribution, or in other words, the city with the most
severe income inequality in the country. iii Creating barriers to higher education for an already
vulnerable population of young people, when higher education is key to economic mobility, is
only exacerbating Atlantas immense social and economic inequality.
If Georgia seeks to attract international investment and become a world-class destination, we
cannot afford to be known for our discrimination against immigrants, our modern segregation in
higher education, and our widening social and economic inequality. By doing so, we are gaining
an international reputation for all the wrong reasons.
SB44 is the Right Thing for Everyone in Georgia
SB44 is the right thing for undocumented students. They are Georgia educated, they pay Georgia
taxes, and they have Georgia accents. They are Georgian in every sense of the word. They have
worked hard and deserve an equal opportunity to pursue higher education and a life of liberty
and happiness.
SB44 is the right thing for all university students, who will grow from a diversity of perspectives
in their classrooms. Exposure to different backgrounds, to multilingual classmates, and to diverse
life experiences helps cultivate future leaders who are better able to govern effectively in a
Georgia with rapidly changing demographics and succeed in a global economy that is
increasingly complex and interdependent.
SB44 is the right thing for all Georgians. Our economy depends on an educated workforce and
keeping the best and brightest in our state. Everyone benefits when our public policies reflect our
values of fairness and opportunity, and help secure a better future for all of our children.
Thank you.

i

Dan Lips, Education Notebook: The Cost of American Education, The Heritage Foundation (Sept. 15, 2006),
http://www.heritage.org/research/education- notebook/ education-notebook-the-cost-of-american-education.
ii

Perez, Zenen Jaimes, Removing Barriers to Higher Education for Undocumented Students, Center for American
Progress (December 2014),
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/report/2014/12/05/101366/removing-barriers-to-highereducation-for-undocumented-students/.
iii
Berube, Alan, All Cities Are Not Created Unequal, The Brookings Institution (February 20, 2014),
http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/02/cities-unequal-berube.