RALEIGH (May 18, 2022) – It’s 2022. And even amid an economy that demands educated workers, North Carolina still has a rule that creates a barrier to higher education for an entire class of people.
Undocumented students brought here by their parents – even if they grow up in North Carolina and graduate from a North Carolina high school – must pay out-of-state tuition at our state universities and community colleges. That means they must pay three to four times what other North Carolina students pay to go to college.
It’s a convenient policy if your aim is to create a caste system that confines a certain group of people to low-wage jobs.
“As their peers are taking the SAT and applying to college, they come to the realization – usually through a conversation with their counselor or a teacher or maybe even their family – that they don’t have the residency status required to get the in-state tuition,” Rep. Ricky Hurtado, D-Alamance, says in the accompanying video.
“These students all of a sudden have their dreams really redirected to think about, ‘Well, those opportunities may actually be closed off to me.’ It’s truly a moral and economic imperative for the state,” Hurtado, also a co-founder of LatinxEd, says.
Students who are otherwise ready for college might end up in a minimum-wage job that doesn’t allow them to support their family.
“You begin to face questions of intergenerational poverty and opportunity,” Hurtado says.
Hurtado sponsored HB753, which would allow immigrant students who attend a North Carolina high school for at least two years and obtain a diploma or GED to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities – “like anybody else,” Hurtado says.
A similar bill in the state Senate, SB672, would allow in-state tuition for students covered by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative.
Hurtado says that removing barriers to higher education is important to an economy that increasingly demands educated workers.
“That includes these DACA youth who are just looking for the same chance as everyone else,” he says.
At least 19 states – including conservative states like Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Utah – have adopted policies that allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.1
IMMIGRANT GROUPS aren’t the only ones looking to change North Carolina’s policy.
In North Carolina, the bipartisan Hunt-Lee Commission explored achievable education reforms and recommended expanded eligibility for in-state tuition in its report last month.
Roughly 3,000 students a year graduate from North Carolina high schools every year but are not eligible to pay in-state tuition at our public colleges and universities because they don’t meet residency requirements, the commission found.
“As a result, these students face a significant barrier to a postsecondary degree with ripple effects that impact our larger economy for generations,” the report says.2
The American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC) is also pushing for reform. The group’s Carolinas chapter is headed by figures as diverse as former Bank of America Chairman and CEO Hugh McColl, Self-Help Center CEO Martin Eakes, Latin American Chamber of Commerce President Gris Bailey, Replacements, Ltd. CEO Bob Page, and Greensboro developer and former UNC Board of Governors member Marty Kotis.3
With an eye toward the increasing demands for educated workers, North Carolina policymakers adopted myFutureNC’s goal to have 2 million North Carolinians ages 25-44 with a high-quality credential or degree by 2030.
If that’s going to happen, says Elaine Townsend Utin, a co-founder of LatinxEd, it needs to include immigrant students.
“The Latinx community makes up over 10% of North Carolina’s population,” Utin says in an accompanying video. “So it is critical to think about North Carolina’s postsecondary success as very much so tied to Latinx students’ success.”
Moreover, Hispanic students now make up more than 20% of the state’s 1.4 million K-12 students, according to the NC Department of Public Instruction.4
It’s time we offer those students the same opportunities as everyone else.
1 https://www.ncsl.org/research/education/undocumented-student-tuition-overview.aspx.
2 https://hunt-institute.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/HI-HLC-FinalReport-2022-wSig-Digital.pdf, p. 18.
3 For more information about ABIC, contact Yahel Flores, Director for the Carolinas, at [email protected].
4 http://apps.schools.nc.gov/ords/f?p=145:15.
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