NC group urges college tuition equality regardless of immigration status

Here’s the press release from Let’s Learn NC:

Let’s Learn NC applauds state Reps. Luebke, Glazier, Cotham and Graham for putting North Carolina’s future first with a proposal that would allow qualified students to pay in-state tuition rates, regardless of immigration status.

HB 904, The In-State Tuition/Some N.C. Immigrant Youth Act, would allow all young people who have graduated from North Carolina high schools and lived in the state for at least two years to pay the in-state tuition rates at our public colleges and universities.

It was introduced the same week that thousands of immigrants and their families, friends and advocates rallied Congress in Washington, DC and around the country to improve our immigration laws to be more fair, humane and responsive.

Ulises Perez, 18, a junior at Carrboro High School says, “in-state [tuition] is important to me because it’s a new door to my education and one step closer to my dream of being the first in my family to go to college.”

With the inevitability of immigration reform, North Carolina’s leaders should be thinking how best to prepare those immigrants to enter the workforce. Sixty-one percent of all jobs in North Carolina will require at least some college by 2020.

Providing in-state college tuition regardless of immigration status is a growing national trend. In the past year, Maryland, Rhode Island, Oregon, and Colorado approved in-state tuition changes bringing the total to 16 states with such measures.

We call for all of our leaders to come together across party lines and take a stand for educational equality and for the future of our state, just as our leaders in the nation’s capitol are doing on the federal level.

We believe higher education should be equally accessible for all of our state’s students. This is about basic fairness and common sense.

Our state is deeply rooted in education—let’s stand together and invest in our young people for a stronger North Carolina.

Let’s Learn NC is a statewide campaign initiative of the Adelante Education Coalition for college tuition equality. The campaign strives to generate awareness of the current tuition inequality as well as introduce state legislation that will provide in-state tuition to all eligible resident students, regardless of their immigration status. To learn more about the campaign, visit http://www.letslearnnc.org and to learn more about the Adelante Education Coalition, please visit en.adelantenc.org.