To deny students is short-sighted

FOR SEVERAL years now, a handful of states have tried to control illegal immigration by enacting laws that explicitly ban young undocumented immigrants from receiving reduced in-state tuition to public colleges and universities.

That was bad enough. Now, education officials in some of those states are stooping even lower and attempting to use the same strategy to discriminate against U.S.-born students whose parents are in this country illegally.

Thankfully, state and federal courts have intervened and put an end to those misguided policies. Earlier this year, a New Jersey judge tossed out a rule in that state that denied American-born students financial aid if their parents were not legal residents. And a federal judge in Miami has thrown out a Florida regulation that required students under the age of 25 and born to parents in the country illegally to pay higher, out-of-state tuition.

It should not take a federal judge to remind Florida lawmakers or education officials that children born in the United States, under whatever circumstances, are fully American.

Making it harder for promising students to attend college doesn't discourage illegal immigration, but it does deprive states of educated workers who can compete in a global economy.

Los Angeles Times