CSU to Raise Fees for Illegal Residents

Amid complaints of confusion and inconsistent enforcement, the California State University system has begun notifying thousands of students and applicants considered illegal residents that they face drastic tuition increases that could force many out of school.

An estimated 2,000 students enrolled in or seeking to attend CSU’s 10 Southern California campuses are receiving warnings that their tuition will increase from $1,584 annually to $8,965 because of a court ruling restricting the lower fees to students who are legal residents of the state.

Those receiving the warnings include 382 current or prospective students at Cal State Northridge whose notices were mailed late last week.

“It’s affected me physically, psychologically, morally, in every way you can imagine,” said one senior at Northridge who fears becoming a dropout.

Although there are no official statistics, the largest portion of those affected are believed to be poor Latinos who will have difficulty finding the money to continue their educations. Cal State Los Angeles and CSUN are expected to be the hardest-hit campuses.

The fee hikes stem from a court case decided in January, which reversed a 10-year-old Cal State policy that granted the lower tuition to students who resided in the state, even if they were in the country illegally.

Those assessed the higher tuition--the same fees charged out-of-state and foreign students--will also no longer be eligible for any public financial aid.

Some administrators and immigrant advocates are complaining of confusion in implementing the new policy because some campuses have been more organized than others in identifying students who reside here illegally.

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Officials at two schools, Fullerton and Bakersfield, said their students may escape the increase because of problems in determining which ones are undocumented.

“It certainly does raise fairness questions in that, out of happenstance, some students are being charged non-resident tuition and some aren’t,” said Robert Rubin, one of several lawyers who represented students in the Cal State case.

“But I don’t know what one does about it.”

Statewide, Cal State officials say many students who get the warnings might be able to avoid the increase if they can prove they have achieved legal status. But among the still-undetermined number of truly undocumented, there has been a worried scramble to avoid being forced out of school.

“Your choices for the future are really limited,” said the CSUN senior. “It’s like I have my arms chained and I can’t do anything about it.”

Though just a year away from earning her degree in Chicano studies, the Mexico-born woman--who asked to remain anonymous--said she is considering switching to a less-expensive community college or leaving school to work to save money.

Community college tuition, even for non-residents, would still be less than half that of Cal State.

The woman said her family sent her to California illegally when she was young. And like most undocumented students born in other countries, she spent much of her life attending California public schools. As Fullerton Admissions Director Jim Blackburn said, “I get very few high school diplomas from San Salvador or Guadalajara High.”

The CSUN student’s predicament was born of the same movement that sponsored Proposition 187, the measure passed by state voters in November that calls for public education to be denied to illegal immigrants.

Though Proposition 187 remains on hold pending several legal challenges, some of its proponents marked another victory on Jan. 17 before the 2nd District Court of Appeal. In response to a several-year-old lawsuit--American Assn. of Women vs. the California State University Board of Trustees--the state appeals court in Los Angeles held that students living in the country illegally could no longer pay the lower tuition reserved for state residents.

The University of California and community college systems already were charging undocumented students higher non-resident fees, so the ruling foreclosed the last avenue of public higher education for many of the students.

After the January ruling, Cal State officials decided not to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Now, because Cal State officials have left implementation of the new tuition policy to the system’s 21 individual campuses, Cal State spokeswoman Colleen Bentley-Adler said she had no idea what portion of the system’s total 320,000 students show up in records as residing here illegally.

The Times obtained an estimate of nearly 2,000 students among the 10 Southern California campuses by surveying each of them individually. Campus officials said that by reviewing admissions records, they had identified at least 1,138 current students and 718 applicants who may have to pay the higher tuition.

When students first apply to the Cal State system, they are required to mark an entry reflecting their citizenship status. But because students often mark those entries incorrectly or later have a change in their status, even individual campus records may be out-of-date, officials said.

The administrators said it may be weeks before they confirm which students are truly illegal. Most campuses report they are sending students letters, although some are contacting students by telephone to notify them of the tuition hikes.

Among the Cal State campuses, Cal State Los Angeles is widely believed to have the largest contingent of students receiving warnings, more than 500 who were mailed letters several weeks ago. The number of applicants affected there could not be determined because campus administrators refused to comment.

The Northridge campus is one of the next largest, with the 205 current students and 177 applicants mailed letters last week.

Close behind are Long Beach, which expects to send letters to about 100 students and 200 applicants in several weeks, and Dominguez Hills, which last month notified about 150 students and 120 applicants, campus officials said.

“Our hope is that when students get the letters, they will be able to provide the documentation” to prove their legal residency, said Margaret Fieweger, CSUN’s associate vice president for undergraduate studies.

The letter sent to Northridge students states: “All new and continuing students whose status with the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service is ‘undocumented’ will be considered non-residents for tuition purposes beginning with the fall 1995 semester.”

It adds:

“We at California State University, Northridge, regret that this court decision may impose additional costs on some of our students. We are, however, hopeful that you will be able to provide the documentation necessary to retain California residency.”

Many administrators expressed sympathy for the affected students, and efforts are under way at several campuses to raise private scholarship funds that could help undocumented students.

Undocumented students already were not eligible for various federal and state financial aid programs. But under the court ruling, undocumented Cal State students also will lose access to the system’s grants programs, which subsidized tuition.

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Several campus officials--educators at heart--said the new policy is presenting them with a moral conflict.

“I do not enjoy having to reclassify these students. I think it’s misplaced energy, in my personal opinion,” said Gloria Kapp, director of admissions and financial aid at Cal State Long Beach. “But I also don’t enjoy breaking the law, so I have to do it.”

So far, neither the Bakersfield nor Fullerton campuses have been able to cull the names of possibly illegal students, citing problems with the way their computer records have been kept.

Fullerton’s Blackburn said that right now he could derive that information only by hand-searching the individual microfilm files of the school’s 22,000 students--a task he said his limited staff cannot accomplish.

Bentley-Adler, the Cal State spokeswoman, conceded the records situation creates a discrepancy and a fairness problem. But she said: “We’re trying to comply as best as we can. There may be some inequities in the system. But eventually it’s going to work itself out.”

For the six Cal State campuses on the quarter system--including Los Angeles, Pomona, San Bernardino and Bakersfield--the higher tuition rate took effect last week with the start of the spring quarter. For the 15 other campuses, including Northridge, Dominguez Hills, Long Beach and Fullerton, the higher tuition will begin with the fall semester.

In yet another inconsistency, Cal State’s enforcement policy is tougher on continuing students than on newcomers. Although enrolled students considered undocumented must now prove their legal status to pay the lower rate, new students who claim legal residency generally are not being forced to do so.

Opponents of the new policy unsuccessfully asked Cal State to follow the UC system’s approach, which grandfathered in existing undocumented students and charged only new enrollees the higher tuition rate. But the language of the legal decision that spawned UC’s policy permitted that solution, while the Cal State ruling does not, Cal State officials said.

Immigrants’ advocates say the new policy leaves students with few options.

Community colleges, which have relatively modest tuition charges, do not grant bachelor’s degrees. And seeking to gain permanent residence status has its own set of problems, including the risk of deportation if the bid is lost.

Even students who manage to win permanent residence would still have to wait one year before regaining their eligibility for the lower tuition rate, said Lee O’Connor of the Legal Aid Society of San Diego, an attorney who specializes in immigration law.

“I feel sorry for these kids,” O’Connor said. “They’re the ones who have overcome all the odds trying to make something of themselves. And now they’re being deprived of that option and future.”