The lawsuit, filed Thursday, is part of a broader federal campaign targeting state laws and university policies that allow undocumented students to pay the lower tuition rates typically reserved for state residents. The Associated Press reported that two dozen states once offered such benefits, many of which received bipartisan support.
But several states, including Kentucky, Illinois, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Florida, have ended their policies following legal challenges from the Trump administration. The Justice Department has also increasingly targeted individual institutions, filing a lawsuit against the University of Delaware last month.
Penn State, which enrolls approximately 86,000 students, said it was aware of the complaint and reviewing it, according to a university spokesperson.
The federal government argues that federal law prohibits states from providing undocumented immigrants with benefits unavailable to U.S. citizens, regardless of whether those students meet state residency requirements.
“The Department of Justice today continues its efforts to ensure that no state law or university policy gives preferential treatment to illegal aliens over our Nation’s own citizens,” Stanley Woodward, a senior Justice Department official, said in a news release.
Supporters of the tuition policies dispute that interpretation. They argue that the laws comply with federal requirements when they offer the same tuition rates to U.S. citizens in comparable circumstances, including students who live in the state and graduate from one of its high schools.
Many of the students affected by the policies were brought to the United States as children. Advocates argue that they have grown up in their communities and should have the same opportunities to pursue higher education as their classmates.
