A brighter future
Undocumented immigrant students get tuition OK

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

Sandy, a 19-year-old community college student, knows what she wants to do.

She wants to go to a four-year college, then graduate school, and eventually work as a psychologist.

A 2002 graduate of Lane Tech College Prep, she knows she has the brains and the will to do it. But this year, even with her two part-time jobs, there’s no way she could afford the tuition.

Sandy, who asked that her last name not be used, came to Chicago from Morelos in southwestern Mexico 11 years ago, joining her parents, who had come several years before to work and make money for the family. None of them have proper immigration documents, and, although her family has worked and paid taxes in Illinois for years, she was not eligible for in-state tuition rates at Illinois public universities.

That changed May 18, when Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed the Access to Higher Education Act into law at Benito Juarez High School in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. With his signature, Illinois joined a growing roster of states—including California, New York, Utah, Washington, Oklahoma and Texas—who make undocumented students eligible for in-state tuition rates.

The act, supported by the Catholic Conference of Illinois, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and a letter to the Chicago Tribune from Cardinal George, passed the state House 112-4 and Senate 55-1. The church’s support and effort to prevent the creation of a permanent underclass among undocumented immigrants was criticized in secular media and in letters to the editor to The Catholic New World.

For Sandy, it means that tuition at the University of Illinois at Chicago will be about $6,000 next year. That’s still a lot, and she’s not sure where she’ll get it.

“My grandmother, my parents … I’m asking everyone,” she said.

But without the law, she would have had to pay not just out-of-state tuition, but also international student fees, boosting the bill close to $20,000, she said.

Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the immigrant rights coalition, said the change garnered support in part because changing demographics mean that politicians from across the state not only have to answer to more immigrants in their constituencies, they also see the contributions immigrants were making.

But there was something deeper at work, Hoyt said, after several students who would benefit traveled to Springfield to speak directly to lawmakers.

“The reason this passed with such an overwhelming majority was in part political calculus,” Hoyt said. “But a lot of the legislators who would have tended not to vote for this changed their positions after being visited by the students. They cast their votes for the futures of some promising young students.”

The law applies to some 2,200 graduating high school seniors this year, as well as recent graduates such as Sandy, according to the coalition. To be eligible, students must have lived in the state at least three years and graduated from an Illinois high school.

The students still face high hurdles since they are not eligible for government-backed loans or grants, and their undocumented status will make it difficult for them to enter the professions. Two federal bills—one in the House and one in the Senate—have been introduced to allow students to become documented, and thus eligible for student aid.

Sandy has spoken with both state and federal elected leaders about her situation. It was a little scary at first, she said, “and then I got choked up. You get a little emotional.”

But she has an answer for those who tell her she shouldn’t be here, and certainly shouldn’t pay the same tuition rates as other Illinois residents, despite the taxes she and her parents have paid.

“I was 8 years old,” she said. “It wasn’t my choice to come here. I’ve been here ever since I can remember. Why should someone who just moved here (from another state) get in-state tuition and not me?”