Tuition for undocumented students in higher education institutions could more than double if HB 413 and SB 576 are passed on the 86th Texas Legislature.
“A person who is not authorized under federal statute to be present in the United States may not be considered a resident of this state for purposes of this title,” the bills read.
If approved during the legislative session, the bills will force undocumented students in Texas to pay out-of-state tuition, which is considerably higher than in-state tuition.
As an example, UTRGV’s current Texas resident or in-state tuition for the academic year 2018-2019 is $3,906.56 for 12 hours per semester. On the contrary, the non-resident or out-of-state tuition is $8,886.56.
Sylvia Gonzalez-Gorman, a political science assistant professor, said there will be economic consequences if any of these bills are passed.
“It will be interesting to see if it’ll actually go through because there’s been a lot of pushback on these two bills,” Gonzalez-Gorman said. “People are recognizing that these affidavit students that are eligible for this in-state tuition, they actually generate revenue for the state of Texas every year.”
She said there have been studies proving that if students have to meet this residency requirement, the state of Texas could lose close to $400 million in economic activity.
“We know that students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree have higher earning potential and affidavit students have an earning potential of 60 percent higher than those that don’t ever go to college,” Gonzalez-Gorman said.
In a statement sent to The Rider on March 7, state Rep. for House District 37 Alex Dominguez (D-Brownsville) said any law that forces students to pay out-of-state tuition will hurt students.
“Most students would probably be unable to pay out-of-state tuition fees,” the statement written by Dominguez reads. “Therefore, local colleges and universities will suffer because they would lose these paying students who do not receive federal financial aid, and thus, reducing the amount of revenue that these colleges and universities use to pay faculty and staff, and fund programs.”
Currently, Section 54.052 of the Education Code allows higher education institutions to assign resident status to a person who obtained a public or private high school diploma in the state of Texas or equivalent, regardless of immigration status.
According to the section, a person with a high school diploma who maintained residence continuously in Texas can also be classified as a resident student, as long as they maintained residence for
— the three years preceding the date of graduation or receipt of the diploma equivalent, as applicable;
— and the year preceding the census date of the academic term in which the person is enrolled in an institution of higher education.
However, HB 413 and SB 576 also aim to amend Section 54.052 by rescinding these two provisions. This means that a high school diploma will no longer be a factor on determining residency status in the state of Texas.
In addition, SB 576 has included a new option for higher education institutions that will enable them to ask students for additional information to prove residency status.
“An institution of higher education may establish a policy requiring a person for whom a residency determination is being made to submit specific documentation to verify to the satisfaction of the institution that the person is authorized under federal statute to be present in the United States,” SB 576 reads.
Asked how bills HB 413 and SB 576 will affect UTRGV, Gonzalez-Gorman replied, “It would affect it hugely because, now, students that are maybe here undocumented, they’re going to have to pay the out-of-state tuition. … That’s going to mean a huge drop in enrollment. It will be a significant drop in enrollment for UTRGV.”
Regarding the impact of the bills on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students, she said the case is likely to end up in court.
“We know that DACA [students], they’re protected under federal statute right now, because it’s still on the court,” Gonzalez-Gorman said. “That’s going to be another area where people are going to push back saying, ‘Hey, this is still on the court. DACA is still on the court system.’ So, they still have those protections, according to the statute.”
The DACA program provides about 800,000 young people who were brought illegally to the United States as children with temporary protection from deportation if they can demonstrate that they meet several criteria, according to whitehouse.gov.
