Education has always been a priority of United States citizens. The U.S. is fortunate enough to have a well established and extensive academic system. Many other countries throughout the world are not as fortunate to have a public education system. In some countries, the government chooses who is allowed to attend school. Education is a large draw of immigrants to the United States. The process to obtain an immigration visa is time-consuming; this can leave some desperate, forcing them to come into the country illegally. The immigrant population is up to 41.3 million, or 13.1% of the total U.S. population (Batalova and Zong). There are currently 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States (Krogstad). This adds an extra, large group of people into the public education system. Now, think of splitting our education system into two categories; preschool through twelfth grade is the first category and post secondary education is the second. Within this essay, the primary focus is post secondary education. Many immigrants and non-immigrants alike desire to achieve a college education and this does not come cheap. The average cost of college varies extensively depending on the type of institution such as in-state, out-of-state, or private college; two-thirds of students pay for college with the assistance of government financial aid, grants, and federal tax credits (College Board). Major debate lies with the discrepancy of what tuition rate undocumented immigrants should be charged and if they should be eligible for financial assistance. Due to a large percentage of undocumented immigrants that do not pay taxes, immigrants in higher education should not be eligible for in-state tuition or any financial assistance. By having stricter laws regarding financial aid and tuition rates in higher education, we could encourage more undocumented immigrants to apply for citizenship, where they would then be eligible for these benefits that citizens have. 

Immigrating to a new country is a lot of paperwork and time. There are many steps and it can get quite confusing. In order to help ease the frustration, the Immigration and Nationality Act was created in 1952. This was the first time that all immigration statues were organized in one place (USCIS).  There have been a few tweaks to this Act over the years, the biggest being in 1996. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, or IIRAIRA, dramatically changed immigration laws in the United States. It increased border protection though adding me agents and using advanced technology. They have also increased penalties for people entering the country illegally, for people smuggling immigrants into the country, and increased penalties for those falsely claiming citizenship (Neuman 1971). The IIRAIRA caused a lot of uproar on the constitutionality on these touchy subjects. Three main subjects of appeal arose following the IIRAIRA. The first was to dismiss pending petitions for review of deportation orders against criminal aliens. The second is the efforts of Congress to condense the questions of judicial review. Lastly, the third was to restrict the review or removal of criminal aliens, discretionary relief, and expedited removal of arriving aliens (Neuman 1983-1985). Politicians and scholars alike argue that the constitutionality of the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act should not even be debated, due to the fact that nowhere in the Constitution does it mention anything about an immigrant. However, all rights of United States citizens are protected in the Constitution and its amendments (Carey). 

A large pull factor to the United States is the opportunity to get a good education. Any combinations of push factors such as political unrest, economic difficulties, war, and the pull of education are huge when immigrants are deciding to come to the United States of America. After all, the American Dream is the ideal that any United States citizen or documented immigrant that comes here has the equal opportunity to achieve success through hard work and determination, no matter what circumstances they were born into or face. Americans are lucky enough to have been born into a country that allows for so many freedoms and opportunities.  

The demographics of immigrants has been changing ever since the United States was established. The current immigration population is up to forty million and growing. Of the 40 million immigrants, there are 11.3 million that are unauthorized (Krogstad and Passel). The latest trends regarding country of origin for immigration is heavily concentrated with Central American people (Hainmueller and Hopkins 529). About half of all undocumented immigrants are from Mexico (Krogstad and Passel). Immigrating from certain countries is easier due to the number of immigrant visas available from different countries and different types of immigrant visas, such as family, work, etc.  (U.S. Visas, U.S Department of State). According to Hainmueller and Hopkins' experiment in 2015, the ten most common countries people emigrate from to come to the United States are Mexico, China, India, Philippines, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Poland, France, and Germany (Hainmueller and Hopkins 536). Hopkins and Hainmueller go into great detail about what affects attitudes towards immigrants, both negatively and positively.  

Coming to America legally is a timely process. The U.S. Department of State explains, "To be eligible to apply for an immigrant visa, a foreign citizen must be sponsored by a U.S. citizen relative, U.S. lawful permanent resident, or a prospective employer" (U.S Visas). After an immigrant has secured a sponsor, an immigrant has to submit a petition and get it approved, then the National Visa Center, or NVC, has to process it, choose an agent, and pay fees. After all the forms and documents are submitted to the NVC, an immigrant needs to submit a visa application, collect financial documents, and all supporting documents and turn them in again to the NVC. The last step is the interview process. After this interview is when an immigrant will be told if they are approved or denied for an immigrant visa. If approved, they will be given a sealed immigrant packet, that they need to present to a United States Customs and Border Protection agent upon entering the country (U.S. Visas, U.S. Department of State). In some extreme cases, immigrants have waited 10 years for visas to become available, but immigrants that are direct relatives have a very short waiting time, usually less than 1 year (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services). To enter the country illegally, it only takes a few days and a little imagination to sneak past our borders. Legal immigration has one massive advantage, the protection of all Constitutional rights (Illegal).  

With a large percentage of the American public being immigrants, this puts a bigger burden on the already stretched public school system. Over crowded schools are directly associated with an increase in immigrants (Jerkins). Teachers are having to go from teaching 16 students to twenty-five students, a thirty-six percent increase. This has a negative effect on students' test scores, especially reading (Jerkins). Teacher turnover rate can be as high as twenty percent per year in an overcrowded school (Jerkins). Immigration and education is a more prevalent problem in some states more than in others. Sixty percent of unauthorized immigrants are accounted for in six states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois (Krogstad and Passel). Out of these six states, they contain 14 of 30 of the most populous cities in the United States (National League of Cities). More often than not, city schools have the most diverse population of students. As the numbers show, this is a huge influx of immigrants to already crowded areas.  At one point, the Immigration and Naturalization Service proposed colleges and universities to collect an immigration fee from international and immigrant students as a payment for using government facilities and to fund an electronic tracking system designed to monitor international students and visitors in exchange programs (Hebel 32). This proposition was not passed but could be proposed again, especially with national security being such a big issue these days. 

Education and administration is drastically different between elementary school, high school, and post secondary education. There was no strict law stating whether or not undocumented immigrants were eligible for a free public education in elementary, middle, or high school. Each individual state handled it differently. In 1982 things had changed. In the case of Plyler v. Doe, the United States Supreme Court ruled "that undocumented immigrant children could attend public schools, for which states and school districts could not charge them tuition" (Olivas 407).  Plyler v. Doe, set an important precedent for immigrant up to twelfth grade. Nowadays, the discrepancy has moved onto post-secondary education. 

A college education is supposed to be an investment. An investment in yourself and your future. College graduates earn more money than their high school graduate counterparts. They have greater job stability, suffer less unemployment, and enjoy a better quality of life (Hout 380). College graduates also commit less crimes, participate more in civic life, and live longer and happier lives (Hout 381). The United States participation rate in higher education, which includes two-year community colleges, is about sixty-five percent (Carpentier 365). Enrollment rates have been steadily increasing but the Universities' income fluctuation varies drastically with public funding towards the structure of universities (Carpentier 368). Public universities heavily rely on state funding. When the state cannot meet the amount they are supposed to pay, then the state colleges and universities need to come up with extra money in other ways (McLendon, Mokher, and Flores 573). For almost all universities, the solution is raising tuition and fees for the students, making public and private institutions more and more similar (Carpentier 381).  Policy-makers often bring up the rising cost of a college education and student debt, but not much is ever done about it. Immigrants and citizens alike, both have to pay the higher tuition rates so by raising the tuition rate both groups are affected, not just immigrants (McLendon, Mokher, and Flores 576). Policy makers seems to forget this often times. Raising tuition rates is not a permanent solution for citizens or undocumented immigrants.

Tuition rates are determined by state legislation and the university depending on how much money the state and its residents' taxes are being paid directly to the institution. States "depend more on tuition and other funding sources and less on state financing" (Tandberg 426).

Since Universities are strapped for money, they turn to attract more out-of-state students because they pay a higher rate. Deciding if undocumented immigrants should be eligible for in-state tuition has been argued almost constantly throughout the years. In 2008, there was finally an answer; "The Department of Homeland Security issued a letter advising colleges that determining state status and conferring state residency status, or lack of status, was a state matter, not in the federal domain" (Olivas 410). A study done by Michael McLendon and Stella Flores, both of Vanderbilt University and Christine Mokher of CNA Education examined how politicians worked on legislation relating to whether they would allow undocumented immigrants to pay the in-state rate or not. They came up with an equation to access the risk of adopting an in-state resident tuition policy. They added up the percent of Latino legislatures, female legislators, electoral competition, percent Democrat legislators, percent foreign-born population, citizen ideology, unemployment rate, average 2-year institution in-state tuition, presence of a consolidated governing board for postsecondary education, and lastly the number of neighboring states where the in-state tuition residency tuition bill has achieved the legislative agenda. This equation could be applied to any given state in a certain year (McLendon, Mokher, and Flora 582). The results of this study display that the increasing number of laws passed in favor of extending the in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants increased the hazard rate and risk set exponentially (584). The risk is high because Universities are spending more money per student because they are getting less money coming in from the state and from taxes (Carpentier 312). Even when these laws are passed, there were no conclusive results that college enrollment is increasing among undocumented students (Baum and Flores 184). Undocumented immigrants should not be granted special treatment. If an out-of-state student has to pay the out-of-state rate so should an undocumented immigrant. For example, why would a student from Illinois pay the out-of-state tuition rate to a state school in South Carolina but an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala would pay the in-state tuition rate to the same state school in South Carolina? When you think about the situation this way, you can see why it makes no sense. American citizens should have priority over immigrants who have come here illegally. 

 The second biggest area of debate when it comes to undocumented students is the issue of financial aid status. In order to be considered for federal financial aid, grants, or loans, a student must fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. This application asks for detailed information about you and your families most recent tax returns, records or untaxed incomes, bank statements, and your Social Security Number if the student is a United States citizen and if not then they must provide the Alien Registration Number, also known as a Green Card, which still only documented immigrants that came to our country legally have (Federal Student Aid, Office of the U.S. Department of Education). Studies show that of the few undocumented immigrants that do pay taxes using their individual taxpayer identification number are eligible for financial aid by filling out a FAFSA (Olivas 412). The government uses FAFSA to appropriate funds to those who have more financial need compared to others. This is meant to make college more affordable in the moment, but student debt is climbing astronomically. It is estimated that 65% of graduating college seniors are at least $25,000 in debt and between the years 2008 and 2010, student debt rose 11% (The Project On Student Debt). The government is trying to make the rising issue of tuition more bearable by increasing financial aid packages for citizens. The problems with these packages are that they do not reach all students because they are strictly based on financial need (Tandberg 440). There are many factors that FAFSA does not take into account such as where the family lives, medical expenses, divorce, death in the family, amount of property owned, and job loss (The Project on Student Debt 5). These factors can have large impacts on the amount of money the family can truly afford, compared to what FAFSA says they can afford. Universities and the federal government rely too heavily on FAFSA, when other things need to be considered. 

A possible solution to reduce inconsistency between states in regards to paying for school is to only award scholarships based on merit. Financial aid is based on socioeconomic status, parental status, etc. If scholarships are strictly based on merit, this would even out the playing field and create an academically competitive environment in schools. In, The Benefits of a Planned Approach, Levine explains how it is important to have one or more goals in mind and plan to achieve them: assessing these goals and outcomes can be extremely beneficial in the future direction the student plans on going (25). If students have the goal of going to college then they will be more motivated to do well in school and achieve the merit based scholarships. Encouraging students with the reward of receiving monetary discounts towards their hefty tuition bills, is a motivating reward. 

In conclusion, statistics do not provide evidence that passing laws in favor of undocumented immigrants being eligible for in-state tuition or financial aid increase the number of immigrants in post-secondary education. The United States government should not provide undocumented immigrants special treatment regarding the payment of higher education, regardless of the circumstances, but rather encourage students to work hard to achieve money towards their education through scholarships based on merit. This ensures that taxpayer money allocated for citizens' education is actually going towards citizens or documented immigrants. Harsher rules on undocumented immigrants not only protects United States citizens and documented immigrants but also encourages undocumented immigrants to begin the process towards citizenship. Then they too can receive the benefits of being a citizen of a country based on the ideals of freedom and opportunity. 


