Top colleges boost illegal immigrants over American students

Last week President Donald Trump’s Justice Department notched another win for American-born college students who for years have been treated as second-class citizens by our public universities.

But according to my research, many of our most prestigious private colleges are still providing financial benefits and other perks to undocumented students — shortchanging Americans in the process.

On Sept. 22, Kentucky agreed to a tentative settlement with the Justice Department that will end in-state tuition benefits for illegal-immigrant students.

The Bluegrass State’s policy — like those of many other states — allowed undocumented immigrants who graduate from a Kentucky high school to pay much lower in-state tuition rates at Kentucky’s state colleges.

In June, Trump’s Justice Department took the state to court, arguing the policy violates federal law — by giving preferential treatment to non-citizens over out-of-state Americans who must pay three or more times the in-state rate.

Kentucky’s cave-in followed similar decisions in Texas and Oklahoma, in response to Trump administration lawsuits; a case against Minnesota is pending.

Trump is intent on putting an end to (at least some) discrimination against US citizens, 25 years after state-level DREAM Acts gave illegal-immigrant students a leg up.

Yet private colleges and universities have apparently not gotten the memo.

In recent years, the dramatic increase in international students has effectively eroded the core and character of our greatest educational institutions.

The international student population has ballooned such that one out of every three students attending our universities today is a first- or second-generation immigrant, or an international student.

Over 19 million such students are now attending our universities, with more than half a million of them undocumented.

Our research at the Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Criticalrace.org revealed that international graduate students at our major universities have outpaced Americans — in many cases, to the detriment of American-born minorities.

So we decided to dig deeper.

We found that every one of America’s 10 highest-ranked universities offer support programs designed to provide extensive financial assistance and legal help to undocumented students.

These are not small or insignificant institutions: Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, the California Institute of Technology, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and the University of Pennsylvania all provide avenues by which undocumented immigrants can receive financial assistance.

At Princeton, “admission and financial aid policies are the same for undocumented or DACA students as they are for all other students applying to the University,” its admissions office states.

“If admitted, undocumented students can be confident that their full financial need . . . will be met” — $80,000 on average this academic year.

Yale promises to provide “access to experts, lawyers and financial support” for undocumented immigrants — while boasting of its “strong commitment to a diverse community, equal opportunity, and accessibility to all candidates . . .  regardless of citizenship.”

MIT will “meet 100% of demonstrated need to meet the full cost of attending, including tuition, housing, dining, books, and personal expenses” — students “just need to apply.”

The average cost of attending MIT is $85,960 per year.

And so the list continues.

While the Ivies are bending over backward to accommodate the financial needs of undocumented students, public universities — until now — haven’t been much better.

Before the Trump lawsuit, an American-born student from Oklahoma wanting to attend Texas A&M would have been subject to out-of-state tuition rates, but an undocumented one present in Texas illegally would not.

The cost difference is substantial: The average in-state tuition for four-year schools in Texas last year was roughly $8,432 — but for out-of-staters, that rate climbed to $24,775.

Protecting equal access to education means protecting the rights of American students.

Our research reveals a clear pattern of our own great institutions making substantial accommodations for undocumented and foreign students, while providing no such help for Americans.

For example, the Equal Protection Project has filed legal challenges against five publicly funded universities (so far — there are many more) that offer scholarship opportunities to illegal-immigrant students, but exclude American-born students from applying for them.

Our complaints have prompted the US Department of Education to open investigations into each of those cases.

I sympathize with the unique situation of undocumented students who are illegally present in this country through no fault of their own.

But discrimination against American-born students is not the solution.

An over-emphasis on foreign student enrollment has played a large role in the rapid and concerning deterioration in the character of many American universities. Our research has shown as much.

Now our universities must address the unfair consequences that their solicitousness for “undocumented” students presents.

Kemberlee Kaye is managing director of the Legal Insurrection Foundation and managing editor of Criticalrace.org