The Justice Department went to court Monday against New York, Connecticut and Vermont, seeking to bar all three states from charging in-state tuition rates to students who are in the country illegally — a filing that puts two of the tri-state area’s public university systems directly in federal litigation.
The complaints challenge state laws, regulations and policies requiring colleges and universities to provide in-state tuition rates to all non-citizens who maintain state residency, regardless of whether they are lawfully present. The department is also asking courts to block the states from enforcing laws that provide financial assistance and scholarships to those students.
“States cannot put illegal aliens over our Nation’s own citizens,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said, adding that the department has now sued every state in the Second Circuit on the issue. Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Civil Division said the matter turns on a straightforward reading of federal law — that “colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens” that are unavailable to U.S. citizens.
Monday’s filings bring the total to 17 lawsuits in the campaign, which is run under Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The legal theory, and the counterargument
The government’s position is that these state laws unconstitutionally discriminate against U.S. citizens who do not receive the same reduced rates or scholarships, create incentives for illegal immigration, and conflict directly with federal law. The citizens in question are out-of-state Americans: a student from New Jersey attending a New York public university pays the higher non-resident rate, while a student living in New York without legal status pays the resident rate.
The states’ side of that turns on how the residency test is written. New York, Connecticut and Vermont all extend in-state tuition reductions to every student who meets certain state residency requirements — the benefit keys on where a student lives and went to high school, not on immigration status. Whether that framing survives federal preemption is the question now in front of the courts.
The department has won on this argument before. Five similar suits — in Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Illinois — have produced favorable orders. Earlier rulings in Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Nebraska permanently enjoined and declared unconstitutional analogous laws granting reduced tuition. Cases have also been pending in Minnesota, Virginia, California, New Jersey and Kansas — which means New Jersey’s turn in this fight is already underway.
The university systems for New York, Connecticut and Vermont did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The enrollment math
The population at issue is small as a share of national enrollment. Roughly 2.4% of all students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities lack legal status, according to an October report from the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Nearly 28% of them are estimated to hold or be eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program providing temporary work permits and deportation protection to people brought to the country as children.
For public universities, the financial effect of an injunction is not obvious in either direction, and administrators in Albany and Hartford will be modeling both. Non-resident tuition at a state university typically runs two to three times the resident rate. A school that must charge the higher rate to these students either collects substantially more per enrollee or loses them entirely — and for a student paying out of pocket without access to federal aid, the second outcome is the likely one.
Why tri-state employers should track this
The practical exposure runs through the workforce pipeline. Community colleges and regional public universities in New York and Connecticut feed nursing programs, allied health, skilled trades, accounting and teaching — fields where employers across the region are already short-staffed. A ruling that prices a segment of local students out of those programs removes graduates from a labor market that is not currently producing enough of them.
Employers with DACA holders on payroll have a narrower question to consider. Those employees are lawfully authorized to work, and this litigation does not change that. But roughly a quarter of the affected student population overlaps with that group, and any employee currently finishing a degree part-time at a state institution could see their cost of completion change if an injunction issues.
Nothing changes immediately. These are complaints, not orders, and the states will answer before any court rules. But given the department’s record in the earlier cases, institutions in the region would be prudent to model what a reversal costs them — before a judge decides the question for them.
JBizNews Desk | New York
© JBizNews.com All Rights Reserved. Reproduction or distribution without written permission is prohibited.
