Study: Colleges profit from illegal immigrants
Most pay out-of-state tuition, which is more costly than in-state tuition
By Kristin Collins, Staff writer

In a time of tight budgets, a consultant delivered a surprising message to the State Board of Community Colleges on Thursday: It's cheaper to admit illegal immigrants than to keep them out. Based on information from the 2006-07 school year, the consultant said the state makes about $1,650 on every student who pays out-of-state tuition, which would likely include illegal immigrants.

On the other hand, the cost of verifying immigration status in order to exclude undocumented students could cost each college about $9,000 a year, the consultant told the board's policy committee.

"I was a little surprised at how much of a revenue source it was" to admit illegal immigrants, board member Stuart Fountain, chairman of the policy committee, said after hearing the report. Fountain also expressed concern about the cost of implementing a system to check the immigration status of every student, which would probably be necessary if the colleges instituted a permanent ban on illegal immigrants.

The preliminary report Thursday was part of the board's effort to craft a permanent policy on the admission of illegal immigrants at its 58 campuses.

Decision months away

Any new policy is sure to be controversial, and Fountain said it will take several more months of meetings and study to formulate one. A final report from the consultants is due in mid-April. (Editor's note: the FINAL REPORT was published April 16, 2009.)

The board has been struggling with the issue since the winter of 2007, when a decision to admit illegal immigrants at all campuses --with out-of-state tuition rates -- caused a public uproar.

In May 2008, battered by public criticism, the colleges closed their doors to undocumented students. They made the move on the advice of the state Attorney General's Office, which said that admitting such students could be a violation of federal law.

The board has kept that policy in place even after getting word from federal officials that no law bars the admission of illegal immigrants. Board members made that decision at the urging of Beverly Perdue, who was then a board member and a candidate for governor.

In November, the board hired the Maryland consulting firm John B. Lee and Associates, at a cost of about $75,000, to study the costs of admitting illegal immigrants and the practices of other states.

The consultants said Thursday that they looked at all the taxpayer money that goes into the colleges, and determined that the cost per student in 2006 and 2007 was $5,375. Out-of-state tuition that year was $7,024.

When they calculated the cost at each individual campus, all but one of the community colleges profited from students who pay out-of-state tuition. At the one exception, Pamlico Community College, each out-of-state student costs taxpayers $69 a year.

Consultants also looked at a national survey of colleges to determine the average cost of verifying immigration status. It was $9,400 a year at four-year institutions and $8,600 at two-year institutions.

Other states

The consultants also looked at policies in 11 states with large immigrant populations, such as Texas, Florida and California. They found that five of those states admit illegal immigrants at in-state tuition rates, and five charge out-of-state tuition.

Only one, South Carolina, does not admit undocumented students. In that state, the schools use the federal program Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, to determine immigration status.

Kennon Briggs, executive vice president of the N.C. Community College System, asked the consultants to include the cost of using that system in their final report.

Fountain said the board is conducting a thorough and methodical study so it can create a solid policy after years of waffling on the issue. "We have had four policy shifts in the last seven years," Fountain said. "We've got to stop the flip-flopping."