Colleges will admit illegal immigrants

RALEIGH

North Carolina's community colleges will allow illegal immigrants to enroll, but they will have to pay nearly five times what other students pay, and they may get blocked from taking certain classes.

Those are the provisions of a new policy approved yesterday by the State Board of Community Colleges. It was the culmination of years of controversy over what to do about illegal immigrants at the state's 58 community colleges.

Supporters of the policy describe it as a compromise approach that combines an open-door admissions philosophy with the establishment of significant hurdles for students who are not in the country legally.

They say that most other states allow illegal immigrants to enroll in community college, and they say that doing so in North Carolina will help illegal immigrants to be educated, productive members of society.

"Admitting undocumented immigrants keeps us in the mainstream of educational thought in the United States," said Stuart Fountain, a member of the community-college board who helped create the new policy.

Opponents say that any illegal immigrant at a community college would be getting trained for a job that the immigrant cannot legally hold. Illegal immigrants trained at community colleges could end up taking jobs from American citizens, they say.

"The community-college board seems to be more concerned about the unemployment rate of illegal immigrants than the unemployment rate of our own citizens," said Ron Woodward, the director of N.C. Listen, a group that supports tougher enforcement of immigration laws.

Under the board's new policy, illegal immigrants will be allowed to enroll in classes only after legal residents have been given slots.

"A student will not displace a North Carolina or U.S. citizen," said Hilda Pinnix-Ragland, the chairwoman of the board.

In addition, to enroll at a community college, illegal immigrants must have a diploma from a U.S. high school, and they must pay out-of-state tuition, which is $7,700 a year. In-state tuition is $1,600 a year.

Affording the out-of-state tuition rate will likely be a challenge for most illegal immigrants because they are not eligible for state or federal financial aid, such as Pell grants.

College officials said that the out-of-state tuition rate covers the full cost of educating a student, so no tax dollars would be used to support illegal immigrants.

The policy puts the state's community colleges in line with the state's public universities. The UNC system, which is separate from the community-college system, admits illegal immigrants if they pay out-of-state tuition and have graduated from a U.S. high school. The state's public K-12 education system must educate all children, including illegal immigrants.

For years, the community-college board has been considering how to handle illegal immigrants, and the system's procedures have changed several times in recent years.

Previously, without a firm systemwide policy, many individual colleges -- including Forsyth Tech Community College-- admitted students regardless of immigration status. During the 2006-07 school year, officials identified 112 illegal immigrants enrolled in college-credit courses -- a tiny percentage of the more than 200,000 total students enrolled in college-credit courses.

Then last year, the board voted to stop admitting illegal immigrants while it formally studied the issue. It paid a consultant $75,000 to conduct the study. The consultant looked at 11 other states and found that 10 of them allow illegal immigrants at community colleges. South Carolina was the one state that bars illegal immigrants from enrolling.

The policy that the board approved yesterday is the result of the consultant's study. The policy likely won't take effect for another six months to a year because it still must go through an administrative-review process.

The community-college board is mainly made up of members who are appointed by the governor or the General Assembly. Two elected officials -- the state treasurer and the lieutenant governor -- sit on the board

Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, a Democrat, cast the only "no" vote yesterday.

Dalton did not speak with reporters after the meeting, but his office released a statement saying that community colleges are already overburdened by state budget cuts and the growing number of North Carolinians who need job training in the bad economy.

In general, community colleges do not aggressively attempt to verify each student's citizenship. They rely on applicants to self-report their immigration status. For critics of the new policy, that raises the prospect that illegal immigrants could simply lie on their applications so that they could pay in-state rather than out-of-state tuition.

Linda Weiner, a vice president of the community-college system, did not directly respond to that criticism yesterday.

"We require self-verification," Weiner said. "And we rely on the truthfulness of our students."

Marco Zarate, the president of the N.C. Society of Hispanic Professionals, praised the board's new policy.

Zarate said that the out-of-state tuition would remain a big obstacle for students, but he added that the most dedicated students could overcome that obstacle in order to get an education and contribute to society.

"This is going to benefit our state," he said. "At the end of the day, our state is going to be better off."

jromoser@wsjournal.com


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