Source: Omaha News

BY CINDY GONZALEZ
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

After a five-year battle to get it passed, Nebraska’s 2006 law extending the resident tuition rate to certain undocumented high school graduates has been utilized by 32 students at public institutions.

That doesn’t mean that more undocumented students aren’t moving on to college.

Some may not be registered under the law, fearful of exposing their status. Some may be unaware it exists. Others are opting instead for private campuses that have more established outreach programs.

Jim Ramirez, a longtime consultant for the Omaha Public Schools, said Bellevue University and the College of St. Mary have played key roles. They offer private funds not restricted by federal rules, he said, and Spanish-speaking recruiters.

While participation in the public institutions is off to a slow start, outgoing State Sen. DiAnna Schimek of Lincoln, who made the controversial legislation her priority and held off an effort this year to repeal it, is confident the numbers will rise.

If research from states with established policies is any indication, she’s right.

Stella M. Flores of Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University has studied the effect of in-state tuition laws in the 10 states that have adopted them since 2001. Nebraska is the most recent; Texas was the first. Iowa has no such law.

Flores said undocumented students are 1.54 times more likely to enroll in college than similar students living in places without the policy.

Traditional gateway states such as Texas and California are driving the statistics. But Flores said immigrant tuition discounts could be key to the future prosperity of states like Nebraska that have younger foreign-born populations.

Nebraska demographics show more noncitizens in younger grades. About 1,675 noncitizens ages 10 through 12 lived in Nebraska in 2006, compared with about 1,300 in the 13-to- 15-year-old group.

Another way to look at the growth:

In 2000, an estimated 900 or so immigrants in Nebraska could have benefited from the in-state tuition law, according to the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Center for Public Affairs Research. That number represented 18-to-24-year-old noncitizen high school graduates who had been in Nebraska at least five years.

For 2006, the pool increased to about 2,000, said UNO census expert David Drozd.

At the time the Nebraska Legislature and other state legislatures passed tuition policies, many believed Congress was on its way to enacting the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, which would have provided a citizenship path for certain graduates. That has not happened.

Rather, a public outcry over illegal immigration has increased. Nebraska’s governor and attorney general are among those who want the tuition law repealed.

“There has been a change of mood,” Flores said. “Now we’re seeing the introduction of state laws that prohibit any undocumented student from being admitted into college — much less get a discount.”

The Department of Homeland Security clarified recently that colleges don’t have to ask about immigration status unless the student was admitted on a student visa and that it is up to the institution to decide if an undocumented student can enroll. The department pointed out the ever-present risk of deportation.

Josh Bernstein of the National Immigration Law Center said that some institutions still deny admission to undocumented students. Some take a “don’t-ask, don’t-tell” stance, skipping proof of citizenship if a student graduated from a local high school.

Undocumented students can beat the high odds of dropping out of high school only to find themselves denied a chance at college by the high costs and the lack of access to federal financial aid, said Bernstein and others.

Of the 32 students registered under Nebraska’s tuition law, 28 are in the University of Nebraska system and four attend community colleges.

• Contact the writer: 444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com