The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of California on Thursday, challenging a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. The lawsuit also targets the California Dream Act, which offers state financial aid to undocumented students who meet certain requirements.
The complaint, filed in the Eastern District of California, targets the state, Governor Gavin Newsom, state attorney general Rob Bonta, the University of California Board of Regents, the California State University Board of Trustees and the California Community Colleges’ Board of Governors.
“California is illegally discriminating against American students and families by offering exclusive tuition benefits for non-citizens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
California marks the sixth state the federal government has sued over such policies, but unlike some of the others, California plans to fight back. The state is home to more than 102,000 undocumented students, who have been permitted to pay in-state tuition rates since 2001 if they met certain requirements. Undocumented students have also been allowed to access state financial aid for more than a decade, according to the Higher Education Immigration Portal.
Newsom has repeatedly pushed back on the Trump administration’s policies, including immigration crackdowns. The DOJ filed another lawsuit against the state on Monday, after Newsom signed a bill banning face coverings for federal immigration agents. The DOJ also recently sued Newsom and California Secretary of State Shirley Weber over the state’s redistricting plan.
Bondi said in her statement that the DOJ will “continue bringing litigation against California until the state ceases its flagrant disregard for federal law.”
But Newsom isn’t backing down.
“The DOJ has now filed three meritless, politically motivated lawsuits against California in a single week,” Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for the governor’s office, said in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “Good luck, Trump. We’ll see you in court.”
By contrast, Texas and Oklahoma, faced with similar lawsuits this summer, swiftly sided with the DOJ, quashing in-state tuition benefits for their undocumented students. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education also agreed to stop offering in-state tuition to noncitizens in September, a few months after the DOJ sued, but the legal battle is ongoing. A judge recently allowed a group of Kentucky undocumented students, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, to intervene in the case. Legal fights in Minnesota and Illinois have also continued as the states defend their in-state tuition policies against DOJ challenges.
The government argues that such laws violate a federal statutory provision that says undocumented people can’t receive higher ed benefits unless citizens are also eligible. The DOJ has asserted that states can’t permit undocumented students in a state to pay lower tuition rates while denying out-of-state citizens the same benefit. Proponents of California’s current policy argue it allows any nonresident who meets certain requirements—including spending three years in a California high school—to access in-state tuition, not just undocumented students.
Rachel Zaentz, a spokesperson for the University of California system, said system leaders believe they’ve acted within the law.
“For decades, the University of California has followed applicable state and federal laws regarding eligibility for in-state tuition, financial aid, and scholarships,” Zaentz said in a statement sent to Inside Higher Ed. “While we will, of course, comply with the law as determined by the courts, we believe our policies and practices are consistent with current legal standards.”
California Community Colleges Chancellor Sonya Christian said in a similar memo that the system “will follow all legal obligations and fully participate in the judicial process alongside our state partners” but “statutes referenced in the lawsuit have been in place for many years and have been implemented in accordance with long-standing legal guidance.”
“Although we cannot comment on ongoing litigation, our commitment remains unchanged: we will continue to ensure that all students who qualify under state law have access to an affordable, high-quality education,” Christian said. “We will also continue to comply fully with all current federal and state requirements.”
Iliana Perez, executive director of the advocacy organization Immigrants Rising, called the latest lawsuit an “an affront to the decades of hard-fought student-led advocacy for equitable access to postsecondary education.” She also noted the challenge comes just a week before college applications are due at public four-year institutions in the state.
“This challenge is a callous attempt to have students second-guess their dreams,” Perez said in a statement. “We have one message for this Administration; we will not be deterred!”
The U.S. Department of Justiceis suing California over its lawsallowing certain undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and receive state-administered scholarships.
In a Thursday court filing, the agency argued that in-state tuition rates for undocumented students illegally provide benefits not offered to all U.S. citizensand asked a federal judge to rule California’s laws unconstitutional.
The lawsuit, which also names as defendants Gov. Gavin Newsomand the governing boards of California’s three public college systems, marks the sixth the DOJ has brought against states with in-state tuition policies for certain undocumented students.
Dive Insight:
California is home to roughly 103,000 undocumented residents enrolled in higher education — accounting for about a fifth of some 510,000 undocumented students in the U.S. — according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.
Since 2001, a California law known as AB 540 has allowed students to pay in-state tuition at its three public higher ed systems if they attended a state high school for at least three years and earned their high school diploma or equivalent in California.Undocumented students must also sign an affidavit saying they have either filed an application to gain legal status or plan to once they are eligible.
A 2017 law broadened that eligibility and permits students to reach the three-year attendance threshold by combining any time spent at a California high school, community college, adult school or carceral education program.
It also allows students who completed at least three years full-time high school coursework anywhere to qualify for the waiver if they attended at least three years of their K-12 education in California.
Leaders from the state’s public college systems — the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges — supported the expansion of the in-state tuition policy.
Both laws apply to both U.S. citizens and immigrants without legal status.
But U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a Thursday statement that policies are “illegally discriminating against American students and families”and that California is demonstrating “flagrant disregard for federal law.”
Since 1998, U.S. law has prohibited immigrants without legal status from receiving any higher education benefit based on their residency, “unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit … without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.”
The agency’s lawsuit is not the first time California’s in-state tuition law has faced legal opposition.One challenge to AB 540 that similarly argued the policy violated federal law made it to the California Supreme Courtin 2010.
However, the court upheld AB 540, ruling it did not violate federal law because students seeking in-state tuition status did not need to be California residents.
The DOJ argued Thursday that this decision was incorrect and that federal courts should reject it.
“Allocating lower tuition rates on the basis of high school attendance is a proxy for residence,” running afoul of federal law, the agency said.
Using the same argument, the DOJ lawsuit also targets a 2011 law permitting AB 540-eligible undocumented students to receive state-administered scholarships and aid and a law passed in 2014 establishing a student loan program for them.
Gaining an in-state tuition waiver for California can have big cost implications for prospective students, as the state’s public colleges charge some of the highest out-of-state tuition premiumsin the U.S., according to the College Board.
The University of California published tuition and fees for out-of-state students who started in 2025-26 were $37,602 more a year than for their in-state counterparts.
At the University of California, Berkeley, that means out-of-state, full-time undergraduates who first enrolled this fall would pay $55,080 if they did not receive financial aid or scholarships — more than double the $17,478 their in-state counterparts would pay sans aid.
Even with aid and institutional scholarships, out-of-state students saw a stark difference. U.S. News & World Report estimated that the average total cost of attendance at UC Berkeley for those receiving need-based aid was $16,636 for in-state students and $66,625 for those from outside of California.
The Cal State system’s published tuition and fees for out-of-state are also higher than for in-state students. Its 23 campuses charge a base rate of $6,450 for in-state undergraduate tuition and fees for the 2025-26 academic year. This year, out-of-state students pay at least $444 more per credit.
Immigrant students and their advocates are working to reopen federal lawsuits that ended in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students in two states and another state where the same outcome seems imminent. Advocates say the judges ruled in favor of the government without a public hearing and the affected students weren’t given the opportunity to defend the policies.
Since the summer, the U.S. Department of Justice challenged in-state tuition policies in Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Texas, claiming state laws extending in-state tuition prices to undocumented students breach federal law.
In Texas and Oklahoma, attorneys general quickly sided with the DOJ and judges swiftly ruled to end in-state tuition benefits for undocumented students. As a result, tuition tripled for some undocumented students this fall, forcing them to make difficult choices about whether they could afford to stay enrolled.
Kentucky’s undocumented students could soon face the same dilemma. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education agreed to end in-state tuition benefits for local undocumented students in a settlement filed in September, but a judge has yet to make a ruling. Meanwhile, legal battles in Minnesota and Illinois are ongoing as these states defend their policies.
Since these lawsuits first emerged, civil rights groups and students have sought to intervene or become parties to them. They’re hoping to reopen the quickly closed cases to have their say in court.
A Latino civil rights organization, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, was the first to file a motion to intervene on behalf of undocumented students in Texas in June. A month later, the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Democracy Forward and the National Immigration Law Center followed suit. They filed their own emergency motions to intervene on behalf of the activist group La Unión del Pueblo Entero, the Austin Community College District’s Board of Trustees and Oscar Silva, a student at the University of North Texas.
MALDEF filed a similar motion on behalf of a group of undocumented students in Kentucky in August. And last week, the organization moved to intervene for students in Oklahoma, as well.
Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, said undocumented students in Kentucky, Oklahoma and Texas “were promised regular tuition, and as a result of that promise, made the decision to attend public higher education institutions in those states,” but “that promise was stripped away wrongfully” and without public input.
He stressed that, except for in extreme circumstances, such as cases involving national security, federal courts are meant to do their work in the public eye. But the Texas and Oklahoma laws got the ax without a public hearing. He also argued state lawmakers who dislike these policies can seek to repeal them, like any other state law, but there’s “no basis for legally challenging them.”
“They’re not allowed to close the public out, do things behind closed doors,” Saenz said. “We ought to expect our courts to conduct their work in public. And that did not happen in Texas. It did not happen in Oklahoma.”
A Bumpy Road
Despite students and advocates’ efforts, the motions to intervene have hit a legal setback.
In Texas, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor denied both MALDEF’s and the other groups’ motions to intervene. O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, said in court filings he agreed with the federal government and Texas that the motions were “legally futile” because federal law “pre-empts” the challenged Texas law. All of the groups seeking to intervene appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Saenz pushed back on the judge’s reasoning, saying O’Connor agreed with Texas and the DOJ’s conclusion “without any argument” or a public hearing where he could have heard a defense of the Texas Dream Act, the 24-year-old law that offered in-state tuition to undocumented students.
“No administration of either party in nearly a quarter century has ever challenged the Texas Dream Act, so his conclusion of futility is simply ludicrous,” Saenz said.
The law was never “presented,” according to Saenz. “That’s the way the courts are supposed to work. You’re supposed to have [an] argument presented in an adversarial manner. He simply signed off on a concocted agreement” between the Texas and U.S. attorneys general, he said.
A group of higher ed institutions and organizations have rallied behind MALDEF and other advocacy groups. The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration filed a 43-page amicus brief with the Fifth Circuit last week, defending interveners in Texas. Thirty-seven colleges, universities, higher education and immigrant rights organizations also signed on to the amicus brief, including the American Association of Colleges and Universities and the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.
The district court decision “violates democratic principles by denying all interested parties their right to be heard,” the amicus brief read.
Whether or not intervention efforts succeed, the stakes of these overturned state laws are too high not to try everything possible, said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance.
“This is about workforce development and supporting our domestic—including immigrant—talent pipeline that colleges and universities train, educate, nurture, and that go on to fuel the workforces … in communities and states,” she said.
She also described intervening as a matter of “fairness.”
“This is not about special treatment of undocumented students,” Feldblum said. “The tuition-equity challenges are targeting students who have grown up in the U.S., who have graduated from local high schools to pursue postsecondary education. This is what we want them to do. This is why we’re investing in their education.”
Despite the roadblock, Saenz said he’s still confident motions to intervene will ultimately triumph.
“I’m very hopeful, because it’s the law,” he said. “Intervention is legally required to be granted in all of these cases. And when we get to the merits of whether the tuition-equity laws are pre-empted or not, the law is absolutely on our side.”
Kentucky Attorney General Russell ColemanThe U.S. Department of Justice and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education have reached a preliminary settlement agreement that would end the state’s policy of offering in-state tuition rates to undocumented students who graduate from Kentucky high schools.
The agreement comes after the DOJ filed a federal lawsuit in June challenging Kentucky’s practice of extending in-state residency status—and the accompanying lower tuition rates—to any student who completes high school in the state, regardless of immigration status. The Justice Department argued this policy creates unequal treatment by providing financial benefits to undocumented immigrants while denying the same rates to U.S. citizens living in other states.
“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in announcing the federal lawsuit.
The legal challenge reflects broader federal immigration enforcement priorities under the Trump administration, which has issued executive orders aimed at preventing undocumented immigrants from accessing taxpayer-funded benefits or preferential treatment in government programs.
Kentucky’s Republican Attorney General Russell Coleman has supported the federal position, arguing that state policy conflicts with federal law prohibiting undocumented immigrants from receiving college benefits unless identical benefits are available to all U.S. citizens. In July, Coleman urged the Council on Postsecondary Education to voluntarily withdraw the regulation rather than pursue costly litigation.
“The federal government has set its immigration policy, and the Council must regulate in accordance with it,” Coleman wrote to the CPE. “To that end, I urge the Council to withdraw its regulation rather than litigate what I believe will be, and should be, a losing fight.”
Under the tentative settlement terms, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education has acknowledged that its tuition policy violates federal law and agreed to terminate it immediately. However, the agreement remains pending approval from U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove in the Eastern District of Kentucky.
The Kentucky case mirrors a similar federal challenge resolved earlier this year, when Texas reached a settlement with the DOJ over comparable in-state tuition policies for undocumented students.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), a prominent Latino civil rights organization, has filed a motion seeking to intervene in the Kentucky lawsuit on behalf of affected students. The motion remains under judicial review. MALDEF was previously denied intervention rights in the parallel Texas case.
The policy change could significantly impact college affordability for undocumented students who have spent their formative years in Kentucky’s educational system. In-state tuition rates are typically substantially lower than out-of-state rates, making higher education more accessible for students from families with limited financial resources.
Kentucky became the third state to end its in-state tuition policy for undocumented students when a settlement was announced Monday.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | amriphoto/E+/Getty Images | klyaksun and SAHACHAT/iStock/Getty Images
The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education agreed to terminate its offering of in-state tuition to undocumented students, according to a settlement filed in court Monday, WKU Public Radio reported.
The termination of reduced tuition remains tentative, as the settlement has yet to be signed by a district court judge, but if it does come to fruition, Kentucky would be the third state to capitulate to demands of the Trump administration on the issue.
President Trump’s Department of Justice has sued multiple states over their policies that provide in-state tuition to undocumented students, arguing that doing so discriminates against out-of-state Americans. Republican-led states that were sued quickly agreed to scrap the policies. But Kentucky, governed by a Democrat, took longer. (Similar lawsuits against Minnesota and Illinois are still pending.)
The state attorney general, a Republican, told the council that the lawsuit would be a “losing fight,” WKU reported.
The Trump administration and state Republicans leaders have used these lawsuits to go around state legislatures and Congress to change policies and programs.
Some higher education and legal experts have called the practice unlawful collusion and tried to intercede on behalf of the immigrant students in court, but they’ve had little luck so far.
MALDEF, the same Latino civil rights group that tried and failed to intervene in the Texas lawsuit, has filed a motion to intervene in Kentucky, but the court has yet to rule on that request.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued Illinois on Tuesday over its policy to allow in-state tuition rates for undocumented students. Illinois is the fifth state targeted by such a lawsuit.
The DOJ filed a complaint in the Southern District of Illinois against the state, Gov. JB Pritzker, the state attorney general and boards of trustees of state universities. The complaint argues that it’s illegal to offer lower tuition rates to undocumented students if out-of-state citizens can’t also benefit.
Illinois passed a law in 2003 that grants in-state tuition to undocumented students who meet certain criteria. To qualify, students need to reside and attend high school in the state for three years, graduate from an Illinois high school, and sign an affidavit promising to apply to become a permanent resident as soon as possible. Pritzker then signed a bill into law last year that would loosen these criteria, starting in July 2026. Students will be able to pay in-state tuition rates if they meet one of two sets of requirements, including attending an Illinois high school for at least two years or a combination of high school and community college in the state for at least three years.
“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a news release. “This Department of Justice has already filed multiple lawsuits to prevent U.S. students from being treated like second-class citizens—Illinois now joins the list of states where we are relentlessly fighting to vindicate federal law.”
In Texas and Oklahoma, the DOJ successfully ended in-state tuition for undocumented students; attorneys general in the two red states swiftly sided with the federal government’s legal challenges. Lawsuits against Kentucky and Minnesota are still ongoing.
This latest lawsuit will likely escalate the Trump administration’s battle with the state of Illinois. President Donald Trump has said he wants to send the National Guard to Chicago, a move that Pritzker forcefully pushed back on. Since Trump took office, Pritzker has been an outspoken critic.
April McLaren, deputy press secretary for the Illinois attorney general’s office, said officials are reviewing the case and have “no further comment.” Representatives at Eastern Illinois University, Northeastern Illinois University and Southern Illinois University, whose boards were among those named in the lawsuit, similarly told Inside Higher Ed that they can’t comment on pending litigation.
A spokesperson for the governor’s office defended the state’s policy and called the lawsuit “yet another blatant attempt to strip Illinoisans of resources and opportunities.”
“While the Trump Administration strips away federal resources from all Americans, Illinois provides consistent and inclusive educational pathways for all students—including immigrants and first-generation students—to access support and contribute to our state,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “All Illinoisans deserve a fair shot to obtain an education, and our programs and policies are consistent with federal laws.”
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Dive Brief:
The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Illinois over state laws allowing certain undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and receive state-administered scholarships.
Under Illinois law, an undocumented student is eligible for in-state tuition if they attended a high school in the state for at least three years, graduated from high school or earned a GED in Illinois, and sign an affidavit saying they will apply to become a permanent U.S. resident as soon as possible.
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi on Tuesday argued that in-state tuition rates for undocumented students illegally provide benefits not offered to all U.S. citizens. A spokesperson for Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s office defended the policy on Wednesday, saying it is consistent with federal law.
Dive Insight:
As of May, Illinois was one of at least 25 states that, along with Washington, D.C., had policies making undocumented students eligible to pay in-state rates at some or all public colleges.
Over 27,600 undocumented students attended Illinois colleges in 2023, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.
Illinois has had its in-state tuition policy for eligible undocumented students in place since 2003. And in 2011, the state General Assembly established the Illinois DREAM Fund Commission, which raises private donations to fund scholarships for those students.
Since June, the DOJ has sued at least five states, including Illinois, over the practice.
The same day the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Texas, the state attorney general’s office partnered with the department to ask the court to strike down the policy.A federal judge declared it unconstitutional shortly afterward,though civil rights groups are seeking to intervene and challenge the ruling.
In Oklahoma, the state attorney general similarly worked with the DOJ to end its policy, a request approved by a federal judge on Friday.Florida repealed its policy through legislation this year independent of federal intervention.
“This Department of Justice has already filed multiple lawsuits to prevent U.S. students from being treated like second-class citizens — Illinois now joins the list of states where we are relentlessly fighting to vindicate federal law,” Bondi said in a Tuesday statement.
Steven Weinhoeft, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, similarly alleged that Illinois’ law unlawfully disadvantages the state’s citizens and uses tax funding to incentivize illegal immigration.
“Illinois has an apparent desire to win a ‘race to the bottom’ as the country’s leading sanctuary state,” he said in a statement. “Illinois citizens deserve better.”
Sanctuary jurisdictions, such as cities and states, are generally considered areas with policieslimiting local authorities’ cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts. Bondi has promised to “eradicate” such policies across the country.
Weinhoeft in February took over as the district’s attorney for Rachelle Aud Crowe, following Trump’s promise to fire all U.S. attorneys appointed by former President Joe Biden.
Unlike Texas and Oklahoma, Illinois is a solidly blue state, with Democratic control over the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the Legislature.And Pritzker has been one of the most outspoken opponents of President Donald Trump.
A spokesperson for the governor’s office called the lawsuit “yet another blatant attempt to strip Illinoisans of resources and opportunities.”
“While the Trump Administration strips away federal resources from all Americans, Illinois provides consistent and inclusive educational pathways for all students — including immigrants and first-generation students — to access support and contribute to our state,” the spokesperson said in an email Wednesday. “All Illinoisans deserve a fair shot to obtain an education, and our programs and policies are consistent with federal laws.”
The DOJ’s lawsuit names as defendants:
The state of Illinois.
Pritzker.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul.
Southern Illinois University’s board of trustees.
Rend Lake College’s board of trustees.
The University of Illinois’ board of trustees.
Chicago State University’s board of trustees.
Eastern Illinois University’s board of trustees.
Illinois State University’s board of trustees.
Northeastern Illinois University’s board of trustees.
Illinois Student Assistance Commission.
Illinois DREAM Fund Commission.
The University of Illinois system said Wednesday it is reviewing the complaint and had no comment. Chicago State said it does not comment on pending litigation. And Rend Lake declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing ongoing talks with its legal counsel.
The remaining colleges did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
The difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition can be substantial.
In-state students who enrolled full time at Illinois State in fall 2025 paid $12,066 for a year of tuition.For out-of-state students, the cost was $24,132.
At Chicago State, new in-state students paid $352 per credit hour, while incoming out-of-state students paid $697.
The 18-year-old from Houston was going to start college in the fall at the University of Texas at Tyler, where she had been awarded $10,000 a year in scholarships. That, she hoped, would set her up for her dream: a Ph.D. in chemistry, followed by a career as a professor or researcher.
“And then the change to in-state tuition happened, and that’s when I knew for sure that I had to pivot,” said Ximena, who was born in Mexico but attended schools stateside since kindergarten. (The Hechinger Report is referring to her by only her first name because she fears retaliation for her immigration status.)
In June, the Texas attorney general’s office and the Trump administration worked together to end the provisions in a state law that had offered thousands of undocumented students like her lower in-state tuition rates at Texas public colleges. State and federal officials successfully argued in court that the long-standing policy discriminated against U.S. citizens from other states who paid a higher rate. That rationale has now been replicated in similar lawsuits against Kentucky, Oklahoma and Minnesota — part of a broader offensive against immigrants’ access to public education.
At UT Tyler, in-state tuition and fees for the upcoming academic year total $9,736, compared to more than $25,000 for out-of-state students. Ximena and her family couldn’t afford the higher tuition bill, so she withdrew. Instead, she enrolled at Houston Community College, where out-of-state costs are $227 per semester hour, nearly three times the in-district rate. The school offers only basic college-level chemistry classes, so to set herself up for a doctorate or original research, Ximena will still need to find a way to pay for a four-year university down the line.
Her predicament is exactly what state lawmakers from both political parties had hoped to avoid when they passed the Texas Dream Act, 2001 legislation that not only opened doors to higher education for undocumented students but was also meant to bolster Texas’s economy and its workforce long-term. With that law, Texas became the first of more than two dozen states to implement in-state tuition for undocumented students, and for nearly 24 years, the landmark policy remained intact. Conservative lawmakers repeatedly proposed to repeal it, but despite years of single-party control in the state legislature, not enough Republicans embraced repeal even as recently as this spring, days before the Texas attorney general’s office and the federal Department of Justice moved to end it.
Now, as the fall semester approaches, immigrant students are weighing whether to disenroll from their courses or await clarity on how the consent agreement entered into by the state and DOJ affects them.
Immigration advocates are worried that Texas colleges and universities are boxing out potential attendees who are lawfully present and still qualify for in-state tuition despite the court ruling — including recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, asylum applicants and Temporary Protected Status holders — because university personnel lack immigration expertise and haven’t been given clear guidelines on exactly who needs to pay the higher tuition rate.
At Austin Community College, which serves an area as large as Connecticut, members of the board of trustees are unsure how to accurately implement the ruling. As they await answers, they’ve so far decided against sending letters asking their students for sensitive information in order to determine tuition rates.
“This confusion will inevitably harm students because what we find is that in the absence of information and in the presence of fear and anxiety, students will opt to not continue higher education,” said Manuel Gonzalez, vice chair of the ACC board of trustees.
A billboard promoting Austin Community College in Spanish sits on a highway that leads to Lockhart, Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Hechinger Report
Policy experts, meanwhile, warn that Texas’s workforce could suffer as talented young people, many of whom have spent their entire education in the state’s public school system, will no longer be able to afford the associate’s and bachelor’s degrees that would allow them to pursue careers that would help propel their local economies. Under the Texas Dream Act, beneficiaries were required to commit to applying for lawful permanent residence as soon as possible, giving them the opportunity to hold down jobs related to their degrees. Without resident status, it’s likely they’ll still work — just more in lower-paying, under-the-radar jobs.
“It’s so short-sighted in terms of the welfare of the state of Texas,”said Barbara Hines, a former law school professor who helped legislators craft the Texas Dream Act.
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For retired Army National Guard Maj. Gen. Rick Noriega, a Democrat who served in the Texas Legislature at the time, that reality hit close to home when he learned of a young yard worker in his district who wanted to enroll at the local community college for aviation mechanics but couldn’t afford out-of-state tuition.
Noriega called the school chancellor’s office, which was able to provide funding for the student to attend. But that experience led him to wonder: How many more kids in his district were running up against the same barriers to higher education?
So he worked with a sociologist to poll students at local high schools about the problem, which turned out to be widespread. And Noriega’s district wasn’t an outlier. In a state that has long had one of the nation’s largest unauthorized immigrant populations, politicians across the partisan divide knew affected constituents, friends or family members and wanted to help. Once Noriega decided to propose legislation, a Republican, Fred Hill, asked to serve as a joint author on the bill.
To proponents of the Texas Dream Act, the best argument in support of in-state tuition for undocumented students was an economic one. After the state had already invested in these students during K-12 public schooling, it made sense to continue developing them so they could eventually help meet Texas’ workforce needs.
“We’d spent all this money on these kids, and they’d done everything that we asked them to do — in many instances superstars and valedictorians and the like — and then they hit this wall, which was higher education that was cost prohibitive,” said Noriega.
The legislation easily passed the Texas House of Representatives, which was Democratic-controlled at the time, but the Republican-led Senate was less accommodating.
“I couldn’t even get a hearing,’” said Leticia Van de Putte, the then-state senator who sponsored the legislation in her chamber.
To persuade her Republican colleagues, she added several restrictions, including requiring undocumented students to live in Texas for three years before finishing high school or receiving a GED. (Three years was estimated as the average time it would take a family to pay enough in state taxes to make up the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition.) She also included the clause mandating that undocumented students who accessed in-state tuition sign an affidavit pledging to pursue green cards as soon as they were able.
Van de Putte also turned to Texas business groups to hammer home the economic case for the bill. And she convinced the business community to pay for buses to bring Latino evangelical conservative pastors from Dallas, San Antonio, Houston and other areas of the state to Austin, so they could knock on doors in support of the legislation and pray with Republican senators and their staff.
After that, the Texas Dream Act overwhelmingly passed the state Senate in May 2001, and then-Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, signed it into law the following month.
Yet by 2007, even as immigrant rights advocates, faith-based groups and business associations formed a coalition to defend immigrants against harmful state policies, the Texas legislature was starting to introduce a wave of generally anti-immigrant proposals. In 2010, polling suggested Texans overwhelmingly opposed allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates.
By 2012, a new slew of right-wing politicians was elected to office, many philosophically opposed to the law — and loud about it. Perry’s defense of the policy had come back to haunt him during the 2012 Republican presidential primary, when his campaign was dogged by criticism after he told opponents of tuition equity during a debate, “I don’t think you have a heart.”
Still, none of the many bills introduced over the years to repeal the Texas Dream Act were successful. And even Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican border hawk, at times equivocated on the policy, with his spokesperson saying in 2013 that Abbott believed “the objective” of in-state tuition regardless of immigration status was “noble.”
Legislative observers say that some Republicans in the state continue to support the policy. “It’s a bipartisan issue. There are Republicans in support of in-state tuition,” said Luis Figueroa, senior director of legislative affairs at the public policy research and advocacy nonprofit Every Texan. “They cannot publicly state it.”
Meanwhile, as the topic became more politically charged in Texas, the Texas Dream Act ended up amplifying a larger conversation that eventually led to the creation of DACA, the Obama-era program that has given some undocumented immigrants access to deportation protections and work permits.
Even before DACA, many immigrants worked, and those who remain undocumented often still do, either as independent contractors for employers that turn a blind eye to their immigration status or by starting their own businesses. A study from May 2020 found that unauthorized residents make up 8.2 percent of the state’s workforce, and for every dollar spent toward public services for them, the state of Texas recouped $1.21 in revenue.
But without the immediate legal permission to work, undocumented college graduates who had benefited from the Texas Dream Act found themselves limited despite their degrees. As the fight for tuition equity spread to other states, so did the fight for a legal solution to support the students it benefited.
When these young people — affectionately dubbed Dreamers — took center stage to more publicly advocate for themselves, their plight proved sympathetic. By 2017, the same year Trump began his first term, polling had flipped to show a plurality of Texans in support of in-state tuition for undocumented students. More recently, research has indicated time and time again that Americans support a pathway to legal status for undocumented residents brought to the U.S. as children.
But arguments against in-state tuition regardless of immigration status also grew in popularity: Critics contended that the policy is unfair to U.S. citizens from other states who have to pay higher rates, or that undocumented students are taking spots at competitive schools that could be filled by documented Americans.
The DOJ leaned on similar rhetoric in the lawsuit that killed tuition equity in Texas, saying the state law is superseded by 1996 federal legislation banning undocumented immigrants from getting in-state tuition based on residency. That argument has become a template as the Trump administration has sued to dismantle other states’ in-state tuition policies for undocumented residents.
In Kentucky, state Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, has followed in Texas’ footsteps, recommending that the state council overseeing higher education withdraw its regulation allowing for access to in-state tuition instead of fighting to defend it in court.
At the same time, the Trump administration has found other ways to cut back on higher education opportunities for undocumented students, rescinding a policy that had helped them participate in career, technical and adult education programs and investigating universities for offering them scholarships.
Back in Texas, the sudden policy change regarding in-state tuition is causing chaos. Even the state’s two largest universities, Texas A&M and the University of Texas, are using different guidelines to decide which students must pay out-of-state rates.
Clouds fill the sky behind the tower at the University of Texas. Credit: Sergio Flores for The Washington Post via Getty Images
“Universities, I think, are the ones that are put in this really difficult position,” Figueroa said. “They are not immigration experts. They’ve received very little guidance about how to interpret the consent decree.”
Amid so much confusion, Figueroa predicted, future lawsuits will likely crop up. Already, affected students and organizations have filed motions in court seeking to belatedly defend the Texas Dream Act against the DOJ.
In the meantime, young scholars are facing difficult choices. One student, who asked to remain anonymous because of her undocumented immigration status, was scrolling through the news on her phone before bed when she saw a headline about the outcome of the DOJ court case.
“I burst in tears because, you know, as someone who’s been fighting to get ahead in their education, right now that I’m in higher education, it’s been a complete blessing,” she said. “So the first thing that I just thought of is ‘What am I going to do now? Where is my future heading?’ The plans that I have had going for me, are they going to have to come to a complete halt?’”
The young woman, who has lived in San Antonio since she was 9 months old, had enrolled in six courses for the fall at Texas A&M-San Antonio and wasn’t sure whether to drop them. It would be her final semester before earning her psychology and sociology degrees, but she couldn’t fathom paying for out-of-state tuition.
“I’m in the unknown,” she said, like “many students in this moment.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or on email at [email protected].
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The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Oklahoma Tuesday over a state law that allows undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. Oklahoma is now the fourth state the DOJ has sued for having such a policy.
The state’s Republican attorney general, Gentner Drummond, swiftly sided with the federal government and filed a joint motion in support of quashing the law. He said in a statement that it’s “discriminatory and unlawful” to offer noncitizens lower in-state tuition rates “that are not made available to out-of-state Americans.”
“Today marks the end of a longstanding exploitation of Oklahoma taxpayers, who for many years have subsidized colleges and universities as they provide unlawful benefits to illegal immigrants in the form of in-state tuition,” Drummond said.
Now the state and the DOJ await a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.
Oklahoma’s quick support for the legal challenge is reminiscent of what happened in Texas when the DOJ sued the state in June: Within hours of the lawsuit, Texas sided with the Justice Department and a judge ruled in favor of a permanent injunction, ending in-state tuition for noncitizens. The DOJ then filed similar lawsuits against Kentucky and Minnesota, though those legal fights are still ongoing.
The lawsuits follow an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in April calling for a crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities and state laws unlawfully “favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens,” citing in-state tuition benefits for noncitizens as an example.
Undocumented students who grew up in the U.S. were allowed to pay in-state college tuition in roughly half of states. But now those benefits are under attack, and some states are walking back their policies, leaving thousands of students scrambling.
This summer, the U.S. Department of Justice sued three states—Kentucky, Minnesota and Texas—over laws that permit noncitizens who grew up in these states to pay the same rates as their peers.
In a shocking move, Texas sided with the federal government within hours of the first lawsuit in June, abruptly ending in-state tuition for noncitizens in the state. Now undocumented students in Texas and multiple civil rights groups are seeking to intervene and reopen the case. They argue Republican state lawmakers and the federal government colluded to reach a speedy resolution, and affected students didn’t get to have their day in court.
The defendants in the Kentucky case—Gov. Andy Beshear, Commissioner of Education Robbie Fletcher and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education—have until mid-August to respond to an amended complaint from the DOJ. The Minnesota lawsuit has been assigned to a federal district judge. Gov. Tim Walz, Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison and the Minnesota Office of Higher Education received a summons in late June.
The rash of lawsuits comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order in April calling for a crackdown on sanctuary cities and state laws unlawfully “favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens,” citing in-state tuition benefits for noncitizens as an example. The recent DOJ lawsuits allege that these state laws favor undocumented students over American out-of-state students.
As these in-state tuition policies become a political flashpoint across the country, here’s what you need to know about them.
1. These laws are more than two decades old.
Texas became the first state to offer in-state tuition rates to certain undocumented students in 2001 when the Texas Dream Act was signed into law. California soon followed, enacting a similar law later that same year.
Currently, 23 states and the District of Columbia have such policies, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Another four states allow in-state tuition rates for noncitizens at some but not all public universities. And five states permit in-state tuition only for participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. For about a decade, Florida also allowed in-state tuition for undocumented students who met certain requirements, but the state rolled back the policy earlier this year.
2. They’ve historically been bipartisan.
While in-state tuition for noncitizens has become a politically polarizing issue, these policies historically enjoyed broad support from state lawmakers of both parties. Republican and Democratic advocates argued that helping undocumented students who attended local high schools go to college would set these students on career paths that benefit state economies. Opponents now argue these laws incentivize illegal immigration.
The Texas Dream Act was signed by Republican governor Rick Perry 24 years ago. He stood by the policy during his 2012 run for president, despite pushback.
“If you say that we should not educate children who come into our state for no other reason than that they’ve been brought there through no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said during a 2011 Republican primary debate. “We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society.”
Perry opposed the federal DREAM Act, which would have created a pathway to citizenship, but advocated for in-state tuition decisions to be left up to states.
The author of Oklahoma’s in-state tuition law, enacted in 2007, was also a Republican lawmaker, Oklahoma representative Randy Terrill. His bill, which won bipartisan support in the state House and Senate, was signed into law by Democratic governor Brad Henry.
Florida Republican governor Rick Scott signed a similar law in 2014, which was scrapped as part of broader immigration legislation signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year.
When asked about the prospect of the law’s repeal in 2023, Scott told The Florida Phoenixhe was “proud” to have signed the bill and “would sign [it] again today.”
Other Republicans rescinded their support.
“It’s time to repeal this law,” Jeanette Nuñez, former lieutenant governor of Florida and current president of Florida International University, wrote on X shortly before the law’s demise. “It has served its purpose and run its course.”
3. Undocumented students must meet specific criteria in each state to qualify.
Each state law comes with different requirements, but undocumented students generally need to prove they’ve lived in a state for a significant amount of time and attended local high schools to qualify for in-state tuition benefits.
For example, in Oklahoma, noncitizens must have graduated from an Oklahoma high school and spent two years with a parent or guardian in the state while taking classes. They also must sign an affidavit promising to apply for legal status when able or show proof they’ve already petitioned U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for legal status.
Undocumented students in Washington State must have spent their senior year at a local high school or earned a G.E.D. in the state, live in the state for at least three consecutive years, as of the date they graduated, and pledge to seek legal permanent residency as soon as legally possible.
4. The laws are designed to also apply to citizens.
These in-state tuition laws are typically crafted to offer in-state tuition rates to students who meet their specific criteria—regardless of immigration status.
That means, in California, for example, any nonresident who spent three years in California high schools is eligible for in-state tuition. So, the policy not only applies to undocumented students but also U.S. citizens who perhaps grew up in the state but may have left and returned for any reason.
Similarly, before the Texas law was dismantled, out-of-state students could gain residency and eligibility for in-state tuition if they graduated from a Texas high school and spent at least three years prior in the state. The policy benefited citizens born and raised in Texas whose parents moved out of the state before they enrolled in college, according to an amicus brief filed by the Intercultural Development Research Association in 2022, when the law faced a legal challenge from the Young Conservatives of Texas.
Advocates for these policies say that’s why they don’t violate the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which prohibits states from providing higher ed benefits to undocumented immigrants unless citizens are also eligible. Trump cited the federal statute in his executive order.
Over the years, these laws have been challenged multiple times in court, but until the DOJ’s lawsuit against Texas, none succeeded.
