Support the Arkansas Postsecondary Education and Economic Development Act of 2013

·      This legislation would have NO effect on Arkansas or any other American citizen’s opportunity to attend college.   None.

 

·      It is not illegal for undocumented students to attend college in Arkansas.  It is just prohibitively expensive because they must pay double the tuition of other students. 

 

·      The bill would do only two things:  (1) Allow undocumented students to use their own money to pay tuition at the in-state rate and (2) require them to sign an affidavit declaring their intention to legalize their immigration status as soon as there is a pathway for them to do so.  There are NO scholarships involved.

 

·      These students are in Arkansas because of decisions made by their parents/guardians and have been here all or most of their lives.  Like us when we were children, these children could not control their parents’ actions.  “Staying behind” was not an option for these children.

 

·      Many of them are undocumented American citizens because they were born in the United States/Arkansas. Undocumented is NOT the same thing as illegal.

 

·       These students are Americanized.  Arkansas is what they know as home.  For them, the reality is there is no place to go back to.  They will remain in Arkansas (college-educated or not), so good public policy dictates equipping them to be contributors to the prosperity of Arkansas rather than a drag on our state resources?  

 

·      The Supreme Court case Plyler vs. Texas made public school education mandatory for undocumented students.  To deny them reasonable access to higher education amounts to turning our backs on years of financial investment made by our state and country.

·      Federal law does not prohibit states from providing in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.  Rather, section 505 of the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigration Reconciliation Act of 1996 prohibits states from providing any higher education benefit to undocumented immigrants unless they provide the same benefit to U.S. citizens in the same circumstances.

·      The Arkansas legislation would allow any U.S. citizen, not just undocumented students, who has attended school in our state for three years and has graduated from an Arkansas high school or has acquired a GED in Arkansas to attend college at the in-state tuition rate.  Any U.S. citizen who meets the same criteria will be eligible for the same benefit as an undocumented student.  

 

·      Twelve states, including Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas, Utah, Nebraska and Wisconsin, have passed laws allowing undocumented students access to higher education at their in-state tuition rates

·      Two states’ laws have been challenged and upheld:  Kansas and California.

 

·      Arkansas cannot realize its economic goals while deliberately creating a whole class of under-educated people by denying them access to a college education.

 

·      By failing to enact comprehensive immigration reform, Congress has handed this problem to the states.  In the interest of Arkansas’s future prosperity, we cannot afford to block reasonable access to higher education for any Arkansas high school graduates.

·      The proposed legislation is not perfect, but it is our opportunity to take charge of the kind of future our state and our children will have.