Should public institutions make undocumented state residents pay out-of-state tuition?
In Michigan, Western Michigan, Wayne State, and Saginaw Valley State allow non-citizens to pay in-state tuition. Yet, its flagship campus—the University of Michigan—does not.
“We just want tuition equality.” That is the proclamation of Daniel Morales, a freshman at U-M, who recently co-founded the Coalition for Tuition Equality.
It is time to insert the phrase “tuition equality” into our educational civil rights lexicon. According to the coalition’s Facebook page, “tuition equality will ensure that every undocumented student that attends and graduates from a Michigan high school receives in-state tuition rates at the University of Michigan.”
In Michigan, just as in probably other states, undocumented students grow up there, reside there, attend and graduate from a public high school there, and their parents pay taxes there for those schools. Then, when these same students without citizenship or a green card apply to U-M—a public institution primarily paid for by the state’s residing citizens and non-citizens—they are assessed an out-of-state rate. That is a classic case of discrimination.
It is amazing how states and localities are more than willing to take tax money from undocumented people to pay for schools, but then refuse to provide them with public services. So students are correct to press for equality, tuition equality.
Morales was born in Mexico unlike his three siblings who were born in the United States and are citizens. About a month before he had to decide on attending U-M and paying the steep out-of-state fees, Morales was granted a 10-year green card. He thus became eligible for in-state tuition.
