PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona voters have approved an initiative to extend cheaper in-state college tuition to some non-citizen students, cheering supporters who hope the measure’s passage Monday will help spark momentum for wider immigration reform in Congress.
The Associated Press called the race for Proposition 308 after the latest round of vote releases gave it a big enough lead that the AP determined it could not lose. Arizona joins at least 18 other states, including California and Virginia, that offer in-state tuition to all students who otherwise qualify regardless of immigration status.
“This shows there is bipartisan broad consensus about immigration solutions,” Rebecca Shi, executive director of the national American Business Immigration Coalition Action, said earlier in the day, anticipating the proposition’s success.
The measure was referred to the ballot by Arizona’s Legislature and repeals some parts of an earlier initiative that banned in-state tuition for non-citizens. It will allow all students regardless of immigration status to pay in-state college rates as long as they attended Arizona high schools for two years and graduated.
Advocates say tens of thousands of future non-citizen students who have been in Arizona for years could potentially benefit from the proposition in a state where an estimated 275,000 migrants are living without authorization.
The measure will allow qualifying non-citizen students to pay the current in-state undergraduate tuition of $10,978 per academic year at Arizona’s state universities. Those universities do not have a specific rate for non-citizens brought to the U.S. as children, but officials say more than 300 students are currently paying a non-resident rate for Arizona high school graduates that is 150% of in-state costs.
Community college students will also benefit.
The vote is a turnaround from 2006, when Arizona voters rode a widespread wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to bar students who entered the U.S. without authorization from getting in-state tuition and other financial benefits, even if they lived here most of their lives.
Subsequent years saw other anti-immigrant measures.
The Arizona legislature in 2010 passed the so-called “show me your papers” law that allowed law enforcement officers to to check the immigration status of residents during routine…
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