Dreaming of college

A Chapel Hill High School junior, who has lived in town for more than six years, will graduate next year.

But he will have to wait for a legislative decision to determine whether he will be able to attend college straight out of high school.

A controversial bill in the N.C. House would allow the children of undocumented immigrants who have attended state high schools for at least four straight years to pay in-state college tuition.

Right now, those students, usually from lower-income families, are forced to pay out-of-state tuition, which can

be as much as $14,000 more each year. Students would have to commit to apply for legal residence as soon as they are eligible.

Juan, a student at Chapel Hill High who has chosen to conceal his true identity, is academically qualified to attend a good in-state school, but his financial status puts him in a tight spot.

“I want to go to UNC(-Chapel Hill) or Duke,” he said. “Of course, I’m not going to get into Duke.

“My grades aren’t nearly good enough, and I don’t have that much money.”

The bill enjoyed widespread, bipartisan backing in the legislature, but about 10 of its 31 co-sponsors reneged in the wake of constituents’ concerns.

Complaint letters reaching editorial pages and advocacy groups’ Web sites across the state have said that illegal immigrants should not receive educational benefits reserved for legal residents.

The letters echo the findings of legislative researchers, who say the proposal violates a 1996 federal law.

A federal bill to change that law has been pending since 2001 and is backed on both sides of the aisle in the Senate and the House.

Proponents of the state bill look to a few other states, including California and Texas, that have had similar legislation in place for years.

And for students like Juan, it’s an economic necessity.

Juan moved from a big city in Brazil with his mother, father and younger brother in the late 1990s to live near an aunt who had married an American citizen.

His family’s economic situation has declined since leaving Belo Horizonte.

His mother was an educator but now works in a women’s gym. His father was a salesman but is having a hard time finding skilled work and cleans homes part time.

Juan washes cars now, but he said he would probably have to work at least a few years after high school to earn enough money to afford out-of-state tuition.

The prospects of finding a job good enough to give him the $20,000 per year needed aren’t good, he said.

Some experts say that the bill makes good economic sense for the state and good recruitment sense for universities.

Undocumented immigrants make up a substantial portion of the state’s population, and if they are not allowed to receive an education, they will not obtain the kind of highly skilled jobs that are increasingly a part of the U.S. economy, said Ferrel Guillory, director of UNC-CH’s Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life.

“Giving young Latinos access to higher education isn’t a matter of simply giving ‘illegal residents’ a benefit of some largesse,” he said. “It’s actually in the interest of the state as a whole.”

Some studies predict that by 2015, almost one in four high school graduates will be Latino, said Jon Young, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management at Fayetteville State University.

Fayetteville State is pursuing Latino students, not only for diversity but also to keep up with the changing pool of applicants, Young said.

“We know that if we are going to meet enrollment projections in the next few years, all the institutions are going to have to reach out to Hispanic students,” he said.

FSU has the largest percentage of Latino students in the UNC system: 4.2 percent of its student body.

Young said he expects that the bill’s passage would increase Latino enrollment by at least 50 percent during the next academic year.

Latinos make up 2.5 percent of UNC-CH’s student body, the third largest percentage in the system.

Some worry that easier access to the UNC system for undocumented immigrants will mean tougher access for legal students. Young said that is a false fear.

Despite a tight state budget, all system schools have room to expand, he said, especially the seven focused-growth institutions, including FSU.

Juan said he thinks that he and others in his situation have an economic claim to be treated like legal residents when it comes to higher education.

“Everyone should have the right to attend college if you live in the state and have been paying taxes here, have been paying all the money made in the state,” he said.

For Juan — who says he is regularly told to go back to Brazil and gets called “Mexican” at school — public resistance to the bill seems like racism.

He said he welcomes the bill’s requirement to apply for legal status. At 18, he has tried before, but immigration officials have not responded.

“How am I supposed to become a citizen?” he asked. “If they give me the papers, I would.

“My aunt has already applied for us, and we have been waiting for a very long time.”

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.