As originally published at www.myusearchblog.com:
The North Carolina Community College system announced Tuesday that it would no longer admit undocumented students. This decision, made in response to a letter from the State Attorney General, has spawned intense discussion about the rights of illegal immigrants and the cost of educating undocumented students. It seems people have very strong opinions about this subject, but unfortunately many of these opinions are based solely on ignorance and stereotypes. So I beg you, before you rush to form your own opinion, read these facts first:
Myth #1: Sending Illegals to College Costs Taxpayers Money
In December of 2007, the President of the North Carolina Community College addressed this issue head on:
“To attend a community college as an undocumented immigrant, these students will have to pay $7,465 per year as full-time curriculum students, which is $2,090 more than the legislature gives the community college to educate a full-time student. Therefore, there is no state subsidy for these students to attend a community college; these students would more than pay the cost of their community college education. Furthermore, under a federal court decision which allowed the admission of undocumented immigrants to institutions of higher education, the students can receive no federal or state educational benefits. Therefore, they must come up with full tuition, plus fees and books, from their own resources. This $10,000-plus expense is beyond the means of almost any undocumented immigrant who might wish to enroll.”
Myth #2: Illegal Immigrants Are Inundating Higher Education
The 58-college North Carolina Community College System estimates that in the 2006-7 academic year, only 112 degree-seeking students, out of 296,540, lacked proof of legal residency. This is hardly an inundation of our colleges.
Myth #3: Denying Illegals Education Will Save Taxpayers Money
In California alone, the cost of incarcerating illegal aliens in California's prisons and jails amounts to about $1.4 billion a year. And in Texas, the cost of providing health care to illegal immigrants was estimated to be over $1.3 billion in 2006.
A national study reported that the largest costs of illegal immigrants are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).
NOTE: Education is the smallest number on the list, and if we allow undocumented students to pursue a college education, wouldn’t we actually decrease the cost of health care, food assistance programs and incarceration? Hmm. This seems like more of a solution to me.
After understanding these facts, I wish I had the money to pay for these 112 students to attend college myself. I would much rather pay to educate them rather than incarcerate them. Wouldn’t you?
I’d love to hear your comments on this issue.
Community colleges are taxpayer supported. Giving a seat to an illegal alien is denying it to a legal resident. Does it make your eyes well to think of an illegal immigrant from a poor country getting a taxpayer funded college education? It makes my eyes well to think of a legal immigrant from a poor country not getting that seat.
Elizabeth Kudner, co-founder of myUsearch.com, an unbiased online service that matches students to colleges and universities.
Thanks for the reply friedmanfriend, but I'm not sure your argument is valid. Yes Community Colleges are taxpayer supported, but illegal immigrants pay to cover the cost of their education and then some, unlike most our citizens (that's why it has to be taxpayer supported). So actually if there were more illegal immigrants in Community Colleges, we would have to pay fewer taxes. And, last time I checked, many Community Colleges weren't turning away many applicants. They actually have a hard time filling their seats. So how would an illegal immigrant be taking the seat of a citizen? I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
They may not be turning away applicants, but each individual class can only hold so many students. Acceptance to a college or university does not, at all, guarantee that you can take the classes you need for your education. Some people have to delay graduating by a semester or more because they couldn't get into a class they needed because it was full. So, yes, if an illegal immigrant is sitting in a class that only accepts 30 people a semester, then someone else (illegal or not) cannot take that class because of it.
Tax payers do pay for a nice chunk of education at a community college. any student may pay $8000 to attend for a year, but that isn't the full cost of an education per student. The true cost may be closer to $20,000 and, because of taxpayers, the cost goes down for students who live in the same state as the community college. The funding from tax payers is only given for in-state students, however. This is why public colleges and universities have different rates for in-state and out-of-state students.
Perhaps people would have less of a problem with illegal immigrants being accepted to universities and community colleges if they were paying the full price (out-of-state) for tuition.
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Elizabeth Kudner, co-founder of myUsearch.com, an unbiased online service that matches students to colleges and universities.
So, admittedly I'm not an expert on this, but I was under the impression that the students did actually pay more than the cost of providing education. From my post:
“To attend a community college as an undocumented immigrant, these students will have to pay $7,465 per year as full-time curriculum students, which is $2,090 more than the legislature gives the community college to educate a full-time student. Therefore, there is no state subsidy for these students to attend a community college; these students would more than pay the cost of their community college education. Furthermore, under a federal court decision which allowed the admission of undocumented immigrants to institutions of higher education, the students can receive no federal or state educational benefits. Therefore, they must come up with full tuition, plus fees and books, from their own resources. This $10,000-plus expense is beyond the means of almost any undocumented immigrant who might wish to enroll.”
So, if you know something I don't, I'd love to hear about it.
Hi ekudner!
Please use the "reply" button when responding to others' posts. It helps keep the flow of conversation going :)
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Your Tongue is a Rudder; It Steers the Whole Ship, Sends Your Words Past Your Lips or Keeps Them Safe Behind Your Teeth... [Brand New]
I rather doubt Elizabeth Kuder's assertion because so many other sources have suggested that illegals do NOT pay their full cost. Just because their tuition is higher than what the state provides, does not prove anything, It is meaningless math. The correct formula for determining if they are getting a subsidy or not is to add up all of the revenues collected by the school (tuition plus subsidies) and divide it by the number of students. If the result of that calculation was lower than the tuition charged to an illegal, THEN they would be paying their full share. I suspect they are receiving a subsidy.
But just for a moment let us assume that she is correct, It does not change anything because these students are still illegal aliens and have no business whatsoever in America. They should not be working and they should not be going to school. The only thing they should be doing is packing their belongings and booking passage back to whatever country it is where they hold citizenship.
Once they get home, if they truly desire to attend a junior college in America, then they can apply legally for a temporary student visa. The government hands student visas out like candy. They are extremely easy to get. Problem solved!
After they earn their education their student visa expires. They can then return home and use their education to improve their country of origin. Or they can apply for citizenship and wait in line along with the millions of other people who wait in line for a greencard. Because they have an education they will be applying in the skilled worker category which gives them a far better shot then is afforded to unskilled applicants.
Just because their parents jumped the line does not mean they should be rewarded by any special privledges for their children which give them better treatment then the millions of other people who follow our laws and wait patiently for a chance to immigrate. If we reward this lawlessness by giving their children special treatment it just induces more parents to break our laws.
Elizabeth Kudner, co-founder of myUsearch.com, an unbiased online service that matches students to colleges and universities.
While your argument is compelling and well written, I think there are a few other factors in play here. While I agree student visas are easier to obtain, I think it is very unlikely that these 18 year old kids would be able to move back to their home country (which many of them haven't lived in since they were babies) by themselves and apply for a student visa. It is more likely that they will stay near their families and continue the circle of poverty by working in an unskilled job. As I mentioned in my post, I'd rather pay for education than food stamps.
If the illegal aliens stay in America the only way they could collect foodstamps would be fraud because they are not otherwise eligible. Any illegal found committing welfare fraud should be deported. A lot of illegal aliens do benefit to a limited extent from foodstamps because while they are not eligble, their American born anchor babies are citizens and they are eligble for various types of welfare.
Your argument about educating them to break the cycle of poverty begs the question of why did their parents come here in the first place. The answer is that they came here for jobs. Apparently our economy creates more low skilled jobs then we have young unskilled people to fill them.
If we educate these illegal children then that imbalance persists and we will need to import even more illegal aliens to fill those unskilled jobs. We will have an even larger population of poor people to support
On the otherhand, assuming they are not deported, if we deny the illegal children of illegal aliens an education then we have a ready made workforce of unskilled workers to meet the demand for unskilled workers. These illegal kids already speak English and will raise their kids (who will be citizens) as English speakers. In the meantime we don't need to import more poor non-English speakers to fill the demand for unskilled labor.
This sounds harsh but consider that it is really the choice of any particular illegal kid whether they go home, get a student visa and return or if they just stay and remain illegal and unskilled. You mentioned their age as a concern but large numbers of their illegal parents were under 18 and non-English speaking when they left their families, made the trip to America so I don't see why it would be a problem for their young offspring to make the reverse trip even if they did not speak their own native language. If the parent can do it, so can the kid.
I personally favor tough workplace enforcement. You say these people will stay close to their families. If we actually got serious about enforcing our workplace laws, most of these families would be unemployed and large numbers of them would pack up and go home in search of a better life. We have already seem that strategy start to work in Oklahoma, Arizona and parts of Virginia with their tough new laws. We should take the approach nation wide. It's called "Attrition through Enforcement" and it is proven to work. English language ability is a skill that is in demand in the third world so most of these illegal kids with an American K-12 education that was stolen from the American taxpayers at the cost of about $100,000 (about $8000 per year x 13 years) will be just fine when they get home to the country where they hold citizenship. They will have above average educations compared to their countrymen.