Immigration is a contentious issue in North Carolina and the nation. But over the past year, our state has made progress by lowering the barriers of entry for undocumented immigrants seeking higher education.
Moving forward requires that those barriers be lowered further, but efforts under way would do the very opposite.
It has been nearly a year and a half since both community colleges and UNC-system schools formally allowed undocumented immigrants to attend its schools — if they paid nonresident rates.
Ensuring college is as expensive as possible was barely one step forward. But new legislation that would use the law to roll back this small victory is certainly two steps back.
Politicians have successfully framed the issue as a matter of citizenship. They are disdainful of those who come to America by any means they can rather than trying to adhere to the rules of a broken system.
But their logic is circular: Policies that make higher education impossible to receive only ensure that immigrants will be consigned to the underclass status that makes them such a target of disdain by the very same people opposed to extending immigrants further opportunity.
Education correlates with numerous measures of success in life. That’s an empirical truth.
In February, the unemployment rate for workers with at least a bachelor’s degree was 4.3 percent, compared to 9.5 percent for those workers with merely a high school diploma. Education is undoubtedly the surest path to prosperity.
Conservative lawmakers sing the praises of assimilation. But the irony is they thwart it by limiting access to the most effective means of upward mobility and inclusion in society.
