State activists passing laws to prevent undocumented immigrants from getting in-state tuition to public universities — or even banning undocumented immigrants from attending public universities, as South Carolina has done — are really hurting their own states.
To begin, young undocumented immigrants are here in this country because their parents brought them, not because they came on their free will. They should not be punished for their parents’ actions. They are already integrated into their local US culture and community. They won’t go back to an alien culture, even if they were born there. Because of that, it would behoove us to help them become as productive as possible, and that means a college education.
The high number of high school drop-outs costs states hundreds of billions of dollars each year; this problem is particularly acute among Latino youth. If undocumented youth have no chance of going to college, they have less reason to finish high school. Not helping students go to college creates much greater costs and results in an uneducated workforce.
The number of undocumented immigrants going to college right now is miniscule. This is certainly not a serious policy problem for any state. Nationwide, about 65,000 undocumented youth graduate from US high schools. Only a very small percentage of these — 5 to 10 percent — are going to college. So in each state, we’re only talking about a few dozen to a few hundred who will apply to college. These students are the high achievers, the smart and driven students who will become educated, productive members of society — the US society, because here is where they are from Their education will quickly pay for itself when they enter the workforce.
Despite all the billions spent on preventing illegal immigration in this country, we’ve had very little success in making people who have spent their lives here go back to where they were born. That being the case, we should encourage young undocumented immigrants who have lived their lives in the US to become well educated.
Immigration critics will say it’s unfair to US citizens to allow undocumented young people to take up slots at public colleges and universities. I say it’s unfair to US society to allow our best and brightest residents — whether legal or not — to be left uneducated.
I’ve got an idea: how about if everybody foreign national who earns a Ph.D. here automatically becomes a citizen. Maybe that way we wouldn’t have to import so many scientists and engineers.
Posted by jgogek 
