Will California Crush Undocumented Students' Shot at the American Dream?

The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case over the constitutionality of a state law (AB 540) that allows undocumented students who graduate from state high schools to pay in-state tuition at public universities.

The lawsuit filed by parents and out-of –state students who attended California universities argues that AB 540 violates federal law by granting in-state tuition to undocumented students while not offering the same fees to students outside of California. Wonder who represents these students? Kris Kobach, chairman of the Kansas Republican Party. Clearly, Republicans don’t seem to get that the anti-immigrant card, as pointed out by Karl Rove, is suicidal. But going back to this in-state tuition battle let me point out a couple of important facts that have been missing from this debate.

Out-of-state tuition is four times higher than in-state. To qualify for in-state tuition, students must be residents of the state or demonstrate that they have resided in the state for at least one year before applying to school. Students involved in the lawsuit were not California residents at the time they were admitted to the University of California system. However, like other out-of-state students, they qualified for in-state tuition after living in the state for a year.