PAGE 6A
MONDAY, MARCH 26. 2012
STATE
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuition for undocumented students could change
XIN LI
editor@kansan.com
Some Kansas lawmakers are trying to repeal a 2004 law that grants in-state tuition to high school graduates without legal immigration status.
Alumna Alaide Vilchis came to the U.S. with her family from Oaxaca, Mexico when she was 14 years old. She held a visitor visa, good for temporary admittance in the country. The family then moved to Shawnee. Vilchis earned her degree from the School of Journalism in 2007. Now 25, Vilchis plans to pursue her master's degree in public policy at American University in Washington, D.C., this fall.
This wouldn't have happened if Kansas legislators didn't pass the law in 2004, the year that Vilchis graduated from Shawnee Mission Northwest High School.
Vilchis said her parents couldn't afford the out-of-state tuition that she would have been required to pay without legal immigration status, despite earning some scholarships.
When she noticed the Kansas Legislature attempted to repeal the law last year, Vilchis became concerned.
"If they pass the repeal," Vilchis said, "they are sending a message to these Kansas students that there is no future for them."
Repeal of in-state tuition
In March 2011, the Kansas House of Representatives passed a bill that repealed in-state tuition for graduates without legal immigration status. The bill failed in the Senate.
The Committee on Federal and State Affairs didn't give up on introducing the repeal bill. According to the committee secretary, Steve Bainum, House Bill
2522, a similar version of this bill, is alive but still stays in the committee.
"Probably nothing will happen to the bill this year," said Rep. Jim Howell, R-Derby, who serves on the committee. Howell supported the bill and said it was more of a principle problem than an economic problem.
Howell said that if the repeal bill was passed, valid U.S. citizenship and Kansas residency proof would be required by colleges and universities for enrollment. A bill with specific instructions hasn't been drafted yet.
Howell said the number of students who would be affected by the enforcement of the bill is relatively small because of the children in undocumented immigrant families attending in K-12 schools right now, only a few would go to college.
According to a Wichita Eagle
article written by Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, in reply to an editorial, the number of the students is 431. Kansas taxpayers pay $1.1 million to support the education for these students.
Rep. Tom Sloan, R-Lawrence, explained the reason behind the repeal.
Sloan said a large number of new Representatives wanted to expel all residents who are not U.S. citizens entered the House after the 2010 Kansas election. These same legislators work with the governor and his administration to deny any benefits to families who are here illegally.
"It doesn't matter that many of the children were carried over the border in the arms of their parents and thus did not make a conscious decision to violate U.S. laws," Sloan said.
Vilchis is now a member of the
Students in action
steering committee of Lawrence Action Network for Diversity, a community group that advocates for diversity. Some student members of the LAND initiated a campaign called "You Don't Speak for Me" when the repeal came up in state legislature.
Vilchis went to the hearings to give her testimony last spring. She said she wanted to let the legislators know that the law that grants her in-state tuition also offered an opportunity of education and a vibrant college life.
"I absolutely love KU," Vilchis said. "I made great friends. No one ever asked me for my papers or saw me as an alien. I was never afraid."
Vilchis also met her husband at the University, and they married in 2010. Wilchis became a legal resident of Kansas in August 2010 through her marriage. She is applying for her conditional
immigration status to be taken away now.
"The government has decided we married in good faith, not just so I could be a legal resident," Vilchis said. "I will be a legal resident regardless of my marital status. In three years, I can apply to be a citizen."
As House Bill 2522 still sleeps in committee, Vilchis has appealed for support from other members of LAND to testify at future hearings. Vilchis said she would be watching the legislature's actions on the repeal.
"I am waiting for the hearing," Vilchis said, "but I hope the repeal will never happen."
Edited by Laura Nightengale
IN-STATE TUITION RATES FOR UNDOCUMENTED STUDENTS
OUT-OF-STATE RATES
Annual tuition for first-time freshmen in 2012: $8,364
(excluding any course fees)
Required campus fees: $858
Room and board: $7,436
Books: $850
Estimated total: $17,508
In order for a student to keep his status as an undocumented student with resident fee privileges, he must:
Annual tuition for first-time freshmen in 2012: $21,750
(excluding any course fees)
Required campus fees: $858
Room and board: $7,436
Books: $850
Estimated total: $30,894
Source: affdabilityku.edu (2011-12 figures are shown, 2012-13 costs will be set by the Board of Regents in June 2012).
FINAL FOUR FROM PAGE 1A
1. File an application to legalize his immigration status within one year of becoming eligible.
2. Begin the process for citizenship within one year of becoming eligible and
3. Maintain an active application for citizenship after filing.
Taylor said.
three of his three-pointers. The Tar Heels scored just 20 points on 22.6 percent shooting, the lowest field goal percentage against Kansas in a half in NCAA tournament history.
n a student fails to do so, he will be required to pay the difference between fees and tuition actually paid and how much he would have paid as a non-resident, as well as interest for the time he was enrolled as a student with resident fee privileges.
Source: registrar.ku.edu
"That triangle-and-two is coming in handy for us," senior guard Conner Teahan said.
"He took that shot with no conscience, with a little smirk on his face like he knew it was going in,"
As the Jayhawk confounded the Tar Heels' offense, they scored just enough to break away. Leading 68-67, junior guard Elijah Johnson knocked down a three-point shot that unofficially called it a night. Self said it was, without question, the biggest shot of the game.
Unlike the vast majority of games this season, everyone chipped in against North Carolina. Junior forward Thomas Robinson, all toughness, had 18 points and nine rebounds. Withey had 15 points, eight rebounds and three timely blocks. But Taylor, who had struggled so mightily in the tournament before Sunday, truly gave the Jayhawks enough in the end.
Taylor had his typical bozo plays. Some passes and shots forced Self to do nothing but cover his face with his hands and shake his head in disbelief. Yet when Taylor was on, when he did all he could to make plays and did so cautiously, he was the best player on the floor. He finished with 22 points, six rebounds,
five assists and five steals. He also might have just rewritten his once somewhat shoddy legacy at Kansas.
"If you can look at the body of work that I've put in my four years, I don't understand how you can't love me," Taylor said. "I've made a lot of mistakes, but I feel like that's just part of a young kid being in college and growing up."
Who else, other than Self, could explain the improbable?
"You've got guys going from playing seven minutes a game to a national player of the year candidate," Self said of Robinson. "You've got guys that basically have been as criticized a player as there's been at KU since I've been there, and now everybody's saying he may be the best point guard that's played there in a long time," he said of Taylor.
"Its amazing to me how much these guys have gotten better. I take pride in that."
Health care law's fate to be determined in court today
Edited by Ian Cummings
Two years and three days after President Barack Obama signed into law a health care overhaul aimed at extending medical insurance to more than 30 million Americans, the high court begins three days of hearings over the
WASHINGTON — The monumental fight over a health care law that touches all Americans and divides them sharply comes before the Supreme Court on Monday. The justices will decide whether to kill or keep the largest expansion in the nation's social safety net in more than four decades.
law's validity.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The challenge from 26 states and a small business group puts the court smack in the middle of a heavily partisan fight over the president's major domestic accomplishment and a presidential election campaign in which all his Republican challengers oppose the law.
If upheld, the law will force dramatic changes in the way insurance companies do business, including forbidding them from denying coverage due to pre-existing medical conditions and limiting how much they can charge older people.
NATIONAL
The law envisions that insurers
will be able to accommodate older and sicker people without facing financial ruin because of its most disputed element, the requirement that Americans have insurance or pay a penalty.
Another major piece of the law is an expansion of the Medicaid program for low-income Americans that will provide coverage to more than 15 million people who currently earn too much to qualify.
By 2019, about 95 percent of the country will have health insurance if the law is allowed to take full effect, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Reams of court filings attest that the changes are being counted on by people with chronic diseases, touted by women who have been denied coverage for their pregnancies, and backed by Americans over 50 but not yet old enough to qualify for Medicare, who face age-inflated insurance premiums.
Republicans are leading the fight to kill the law either by the court or through congressional repeal. They say the worst fears about what they derisly call "Obama-care" already have come to pass in the form of higher costs and regulations, claims that the law's supporters dispute. GOP presidential candidates all promise to repeal it if elected.
"Obamacare has already proven unpopular and unaffordable," House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said on the law's second anniversary.
The White House says it has little doubt the high court will uphold the law, and that even its opponents will eventually change their tune.
"One thing I'm confident of is, by the end of this decade, we're going to be very glad the Republicans termed this 'Obamacare', because when the reality of health care is in place, it's going to be nothing like the kind of fear-mongering that was done," said David Plouffe, a senior adviser to the president, said Sunday in an interview with ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."
Pollst have consistently shown the public is at best ambivalent about the benefits of the health care law, and that a majority of Americans believe the insurance requirement is unconstitutional.
The administration's public education campaign has come under strong criticism from its allies who say the White House has been timid in the face of relentless Republican attacks.