The growing momentum for tuition equity

by Rob Schofield, NC Policy Watch, April 7, 2015.

Why forces opposed to helping immigrant kids find themselves increasingly isolated

The recent and encouraging national progress in resisting efforts to discriminate against LGBT Americans feels very much as if it is reaching the proverbial “tipping point.” Just a few years back, even genuinely progressive politicians were tiptoeing gingerly around the issue. Today, corporate bosses, sports league czars and even NASCAR leaders, for heaven’s sake, are making it quite clear that they want nothing to do with the forces of discrimination and exclusion.

Some days, it feels almost as if a giant national closet door has been thrust open and that light is quickly spreading into areas long shrouded in darkness. Suddenly, millions of people who lived fearful, second class existences have the real prospect of leading better, happier, healthier and more honest lives.

What’s more, to make matters even more encouraging, there are growing indications that this may not be the end of such stories. After years of demonization by a loud, angry and, as it turns out, small minority, another group of Americans may soon come fully out into the light.

Immigrant children step out of the shadows

It may seem odd at first to compare the plight of immigrant kids with that of LGBT adults seeking equality, but when you take a minute to consider the matter, the parallels are striking. There’s the matter of being forced to live in hiding, the effort by society to punish and even criminalize the mere act of existing and, of course, the venom both groups have been forced for so long to endure from a lot of their fellow Americans.

And now, happily, there is also the rapidly developing common experience of a societal attitude overhaul. Where once the idea of marriage equality for gay and lesbian Americans seemed unimaginable, it is now clearly here to stay.

And so, increasingly, it is with the matter of public policy solutions for undocumented kids (and maybe even their parents). Though still disparaged as “aliens” and “invaders” by a shrinking number of hard core nativists and paranoiacs, more and more undocumented immigrants – especially young people who have lived in the U.S. for big chunks (if not most) of their lives – are coming out and speaking out.

They may not have been born in the U.S.A., but millions of immigrant kids are, effectively, as “American” as anyone else. The United States is the only country they know. Their friends are American, their schools and teachers and daily life experiences are American, the taxes they pay are American. Meanwhile, the notion of sending them elsewhere is widely and increasingly understood to be absurd.

The case for tuition equity

One such nonsensical and punitive policy getting more and more critical attention these days is the one (still in effect in North Carolina and a shrinking list of other states) that effectively denies immigrant young people access to higher education. Under state law, immigrant children who have lived here and paid taxes for years – even almost all of their lives – are still required to pay prohibitively expensive out-of-state tuition rates that equate to around 400% of the in-state rates.

As a practical matter, of course, such a policy denies the vast majority of these kids the chance to go to college. When tuition alone at UNC Chapel Hill is $33,624 per year rather than $8,374 (a number that is already way too high), it’s not hard to see how college remains out of reach for the overwhelming majority of these young people.

The impact of such a policy is as obvious as it is destructive: hundreds of smart, driven, high-achieving young people who are all but sure to stay in North Carolina and be a part of our economy are nonetheless prevented from getting the kind of education they need to be successful and to help propel the state.

Happily, a growing and bipartisan group of advocates and public officials are pushing back against the current law and in favor of ”tuition equity.” As Alexandra Sirota of the N.C. Budget and Tax Center explained in a report on the subject last summer:

“Tuition equity allows undocumented students who have been educated in a state’s K-12 school system to pay in-state tuition at public colleges or universities in the state. By law, all students must have access to public K-12 education regardless of their immigration status. In some states, undocumented students can qualify for in-state tuition only if they attended a public grade or high school in the state for at least three years.”

Recently and encouragingly, the push for tuition equity led by groups like Adelante! has resulted in the introduction of bipartisan legislation at the North Carolina General Assembly to change things.

This is from a statement issued by a coalition of advocacy groups last week that accompanied the new bill:

“Senate Bill 463, introduced by Sen. Fletcher Hartsell (R-Concord) with bipartisan support, calls for any individual who has attended school in North Carolina for at least three consecutive years immediately prior to graduation and has received a high school diploma or a general education diploma (GED) in North Carolina be granted resident tuition status.

The bill, experts say, would help North Carolina’s workforce compete for 21st century jobs. North Carolina’s state and local governments, business, and industry are currently recruiting college graduates from outside the state, as well as outside the US to fill shortages in the fields of business, education and health services.

‘If you’ve worked hard in school, lived here for at least 3 years and graduated from a NC high school, you should qualify for in-state tuition to North Carolina community colleges, public colleges and universities,’ said Marco Zбrate, President of the NC Society of Hispanic Professionals. ‘This is about both rewarding students’ hard work and allowing them and all North Carolinians to contribute to the workforce and economic development of our state.’”

The forces behind the progress

Many of the folks pushing for tuition equity, of course, are what might be described as the “progressive usual suspects” – i.e. civil and human rights nonprofits. As is the case with the push for LGBT equality, however, one of the most encouraging and powerful forces driving the movement is the business community. Like the corporate giants speaking out against pro-discrimination laws masquerading as “religious freedom” proposalsbecause they know doing so is good for business, pro-tuition equity business leaders understand that having more educated workers is also good for an economy.

Indeed, more and more of them grasp, as Adam Davidson explained in an excellent and informative New York Times article (“Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrants”) two weeks ago, that rather than taking the jobs of natives, immigrants add to the job pool.

In explaining economist David Card’s groundbreaking findings on the subject, Davidson writes:

“His paper was the most important of a series of revolutionary studies that transformed how economists think about immigration. Before, standard economic models held that immigrants cause long-term benefits, but at the cost of short-term pain in the form of lower wages and greater unemployment for natives. But most economists now believe that Card’s findings were correct: Immigrants bring long-term benefits at no measurable short-term cost.”

In other words, while some business leaders are no doubt motivated by a noble purpose, it’s a sure thing that many are simply driven by the bottom line.

Going forward

Where all this will lead in North Carolina in the near term is hard to say. Despite the encouraging signals from some conservatives, a dedicated group of fearful xenophobes in the state’s far right advocacy community remains ever vigilant with pitchforks and megaphones in hand, ready to make life miserable for any conservative politician who crosses them.

Fortunately, however, as with the hard right defenders of marriage discrimination, this is a watchdog whose bark will, increasingly, be worse than its bite. Especially as more and more average North Carolinians come to know individual immigrants and their stories (and to grasp the inaccuracy of the anti-immigrant claims) it’s easy to envision tuition equity and other reform ideas finding their own positive tipping points in the not-too-distant future. Stay tuned.

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2015/04/07/the-growing-momentum-for-tuition-equity/