Posted on 09/04/2012 11:42:25 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
A federal judge in Miami has ruled that Florida students cannot be charged higher non-resident tuition simply because their parents may be in the U.S. illegally.
U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore says the rules violate the Constitution. The lawsuit was filed earlier this year by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of students who are U.S. citizens and Florida residents but whose parents cannot prove legal immigration status.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.orlandosentinel.com ...
Me, neither. The students who sued are legal U.S. citizens.
Technically, colleges have been doing this for decades. I can move to another state and declare residency there, but if my parents are paying the college bills - and are not residents of that state - I don’t get to pay in-state tuition. Some schools even make you declare, under penalty, that your out-of-state parents are not paying for your schooling.
The entire reason we have in-state tuition is because it allows people who have been paying taxes in a state for many years to get a discounted rate on the schools in that state. More than likely, rulings like this will eliminate that deal.
whoopee!
I’m gonna claim I can’t prove my citizenship and my kid’s gonna get FL state tuition! Habla espanol?
I don’t get your point.
The student is a Florida resident and US citizen.
Why shouldn’t a US citizen get in-state tuition in the state he lives in?
He is neither a foreigner nor out of state student.
Now I am not defending illegals, because in California it is at the other extreme where you can be an illegal and not only get in-state tuition but a full ride grant to any public university and private money scholarships unconditionally, and you don’t have to demonstrate one cent of income earned or taxes paid.
I’m still constantly amazed that those on this site STILL omit the damning part of the 14th “..and subject to the jurisdiction thereof...”. Mommy & daddy aren’t legal = kids, no matter WHERE born, are illegal.
This is pandering, illegal and discriminating to the legal Citizenry of the U.S.A.
I don't think so. This case was about Florida residents who are U.S. citizens attending Florida colleges/universities. Not people moving from one state to another to attend college.
what do you mean?
I am still constantly amazed that there are some Freepers who can’t make a distinction between how the law actually operates and the way they think it should operate.
In theory, I agree with you, but what we want is the not same as what exists.
What cr@p, the 14th does not say that; it is what radical leftists want the 14th to say, so as to destroy our republic.
An illegal does not have the power to bestow citizenship on her offspring.
Newt was right. Congress should, for instance, disestablish the entire Ninth Circus and impeach about half a dozen judges per year.
Unless we get a few judicial scalps now and then, the blackrobes along with the administrative state will render the lawgivers, meaning us, into irrelevant serfs.
My son just started college at Texas A&M, and we live in California. We’re trying to figure out how to get him in state tuition.
We may make him independent of us at, and not declare him a dependent on our taxes.
He then has to work 8-10 hours a week at a job outside the college for a year.
The other way is for him to buy property. We’ve been thinking of giving him money, and then he can use that to buy property. We’re not sure about that right now. We need to really make sure about that.
We think we could give him money this year while he’s a dependent. Then next year, he can purchase property. He’ll have roommates, and he should be able to use that money to pay for college.
It doesn’t. They are pretending, rather shrewdly, that the states are denying them citizenship, since the criteria for lower rates is traditionally residency, which is associated with citizenship. But there’s nothing to say states can’t set standards for lower rates according to their own criteria. Why not residency and citizen parents?
I realize States have been penned in on all sides from “discriminating.” They can’t set standards according to race, gender, sexual preference, “disability,” ir a million other criteria. But there are all sorts of ways they do discriminate. Nit in tuition rates, maybe, but in who gets accepted or who gets and lians and what their terms are. Thid includes the feds, too, needless to say. How come age, academic ability, and your parental income determine how much you pay and whether you can get in? Ah, here we come to it. Because those are rational, PC, or whatever.
Parental citizenship status, contrarywise, judges plain don’t like. They’re icky or cryptically racist or something. And judges are free to chuck out laws that are icky
There is no good reason why foreigners violating our laws should get discounts. Jeesh.
This crap is mind blowing to me it is so absurd...I travel overseas on vacation, and have found places I would like to stay, live for 6-8 months a year and possibly even run a business - but there is NO WAY most of these countries will allow it; I’d be locked up in jail if I even tried....what part of ILLEGAL alien don’t people understand???
There is no 14 th amendment issue here, so far ad I know. You are gobblety-yoking it up just like the lib’s presumably on the basis that it sounds bad. But what’s actually going on? Florida is not denying citizenship status. Tuition rates are not set according to state citizenship in any case, but rather residency. Residency may traditionally go along with slciyizenship, butnit by definition.
Now, who says a state is allowed to set tuition rates lower for residents but not other criteria of their own design? Residence alone may be traditionally associated with lower rates, but that doesn’t mean States can’t add to it. I don’t see legally why Florida can’t include the citizenship status of your parents in determining eligibility for lower tuition rates.
So far as I can see they’re not saying you’re not a citizen of Florida. It’s just that that’s not enough. It never was, actually. It was always residency, not citizenship. And recently it was residency plus something else.
“Why shouldn’t a US citizen get in-state tuition in the state he lives in”
I can think of one good reason: state legislators have decided that’s not enough. Just because residence has been traditionally associated with lower tuition doesn’t mean States can’t add criteria. You may think they’re wrong or stupid or secretly racist for doing so, but that does not mean you or a set of judges can tell Florida otherwise.
I have no problem if the kid (who is a citizen of that state) is self-supporting, and getting in-state tuition. The problem is that most 18-year-olds are not self-supporting. If this kid is relying on money from his illegal (and non-tax-paying) parents for tuition, he is taking money from other tax payers to support his in-state tuition rate.
In-state tuition is a reduced fee for the taxpayers of that state because they partially fund the public schools of that state. Sure, the kid is a resident, but that’s irrelevant if the money supporting him comes from someone that doesn’t pay taxes.
This isn’t sustainable. If people can just declare residency in any state and then have their parents pay their bills, in-state tuition will be a thing of the past, especially in states that have a lot of public universities, where people migrate to for school (particularly from the northeast, where there aren’t a lot of public universities).
I have one little question for you. Are lower tuition rates part of state citizenship status? In the very least all across the country residence is also required. So no. No one is being stripped of citizenship. There is no 14th amendment issue. This law us not unconstitutional. It’s none of the judges’ business.
I mean the original intent of the 14th amendment was to stop bigoted Democrats in the south from denying citizenship to recently freed black slaves.
The original intent of the 14th amendment has been abandoned and has been abused.
For more on the original intent of the 14th amendment, I’ll refer you to this fine essay by Edward Erler of the Claremont Institute:
http://www.heritage.org/constitution#!/amendments/14/essays/167/citizenship
So a student whose parents are legal residents of Mexico is entitled to lower tuition in Florida than a student whose parents are legal residents of Alabama? Only a liberal could believe this makes sense.
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