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Mike Johnston
Colorado General Assembly | 200 E. Colfax Avenue | Denver, CO 80203 | 303.866.4864
Why We Need It Undocumented students who have graduated from our high schools and have benefited from our investment in K-12 education are forced to pay out-of-state tuition, a prohibitive expense that most cannot afford. This essentially means Coloradans are not receiving a return on our investment, because these students are not enrolling in college or are moving out-of-state. College graduates are less likely to be caught in a cycle of poverty. Students with a college degree are more productive and civically engaged, they contribute more to the state tax base and are less likely to end up in the corrections system. A RAND Corporation study estimated that a 30-year-old immigrant who graduates from college provides a $9,000 net annual benefit to the state through increased economic contributions and tax revenues, and decreased reliance on public services.1 For the thousands of students currently in line to become citizens, allowing them to pay in-state tuition helps guarantee an educated workforce once they attain citizenship. Some of our best and brightest students are not yet Americans through no fault of their own and they deserve to have access to an affordable college education. Their families pay taxes, and they have worked hard to be a good student and get accepted to college. The vast majority of undocumented students who would be eligible for in-state tuition do not currently attend college or attend classes part-time due to the exorbitant cost of out-of-state tuition. Adding these students as full-time students will raise millions of dollars in additional tuition revenue for Colorados financially-strapped colleges and universities. What Other States are Doing Currently, 13 states allow in-state tuition for undocumented students, including Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, Illinois, California, Washington, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and New York. Other states, like California, New Mexico and Texas, have gone even farther and provide undocumented students with in-state tuition and access to financial aid. Initial trends prove that in-state tuition is having a positive impact on the dropout rates of Latino high school students and on the number of Latino students enrolling in post-secondary programs.2 For example, Kansas experienced its lowest-ever dropout rate amongst Hispanic students in the year following passage of a similar bill. 3 Furthermore, states that have enacted tuition equity legislation have increased the revenue to their public institutions of higher learning.4 In 2009, Texas colleges and universities received $27.2 million in tuition and fees from undocumented students.5
Vernez, G., Krop, R. A., & Rydell, C. P. Closing the Education Gap: Benefits and Costs. Center for Research on Immigration Policy. Washington: RAND, 1999. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1036.html 2 Elise A. Keaton, Center for Policy Entrepreneurship, Tuition Equity Legislation: Investing in Colorado High School Graduates through Equal Opportunity to Postsecondary Education, 31 (Sept. 2008), http://www.c-pe.org/documents/CPETuitionEquityReport.pdf. 3 The Tuition Equity Effect, http://www.heaacolorado.org/download/HEAA_TuitionEquityReport2.pdf, 15. 4 Id, 27-29. 5 Stoptexassetasides.org, Overview: Texas Resident Status in Higher Education, (last visited January 22, 2012), http://stoptexassetasides.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/OverviewResidencyInStateTuition_REVISED.pdf