The Dream of Education

What a waste. Every year, as many as 60,000 immigrant teenagers who go through high school in the United States and graduate fully prepared for college simply cannot afford to go because their parents came to this country illegally.

U.S. immigration law makes it tough for states to charge such students in-state tuition, rather than the much-higher out-of-state fees. However, California and three other states -- New York, Texas and Utah -- decided that the benefits of having these kids finish their education were significant. They passed laws to get around a federal regulation that forces states to give out-of-state residents an equal break if they give any break to illegal- immigrant children.

But students in the other 46 states are not as lucky. Congress has a chance to help them by passing legislation that would restore a state’s right to determine its own criteria for public higher-education benefits.

A Senate bill by Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) -- the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, or DREAM, Act -- and a House bill would repeal the troublesome rules, in a 1996 immigration law. It also would allow illegal-immigrant students who met a list of requirements to earn permanent legal status -- because as matters stand, those who are in the U.S. illegally and do make it through college cannot work here legally.

If the U.S. could increase the college completion rate of 18-year-old Latinos by just 3 percentage points, projected Social Security and Medicare contributions would grow by $600 million, a 1995 Rand Corp. report found.

By conservative estimates, the economic contributions of Latino immigrants aided by the proposed legislation would pay back a state’s education investment -- including the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition -- within three to four years of their joining the workforce.

The two bills differ slightly on which students would qualify, but both require applicants to be under 21 years of age, have earned a high school diploma or equivalent, be of “good moral character” and have lived in the U.S. for at least five years.

It shouldn’t take a doctorate to figure out that the majority of these aspiring college students are, for all intents and purposes, Americans. Congress would be smart to make it easier for states to help them become well-educated and productive citizens.