Subsidizing Illegals in College

This is not particularly "national news", but certainly is odd enough to prompt a column and I guess I'm odd enough to write it.  Prescott University, a private college in Arizona, is now imposing a $30 "fee" on its students, to fund annual scholarships for illegal aliens who are students there.  That is correct; all students will pay $30 so that a student who is illegally in the USA can have a college education.

Before we ponder this too hard, let us note a few things.

- The $30 fee is mandatory, but I have seen in some accounts of this story that individual students can opt out of paying it somehow, if they act in advance.
- Prescott is a private university and can do anything it pleases, at least up through what it is legally allowed to.
- The fee idea was allegedly pushed by existing students; it does not sound like the university came up with the idea on its own, although it certainly saw a rent-seeking opportunity.

I'm reminded that in 1974, as a student at the University of North Carolina Medical School, I applied to be considered a resident of the state and subject to in-state tuition rates.  As I noted at the time, I had not lived with my parents for five years; I worked in North Carolina, my church was there, my home and all the few things I owned were there.  If, I contended, I was not a resident of the state, then please explain to me what state I did live in, because there wasn't any other.

The University rejected my entreaty without telling me where else I apparently lived, and I responded by leaving school and starting an opera company.  As debt-laden as I was at the time, I really needed the in-state tuition rates, so I thought at the time, and couldn't stay in school otherwise.  I never was able to have a conversation with the school to appeal.

I came away from that experience with the understanding that residency was a big deal, and the benefits available to people as a result of residence in the jurisdiction were of value.  I still feel that way, whether at the state or the national level.

So I come at this particular story with a very biased perspective.  As I said, Prescott University is free to do whatever it wants within the confines of the law.  But I am really troubled by the selective nature of whom this fee is supposed to help.  I'm not concerned about the future recipients being Mexican or Central American or wherever they may be from.  We are, after all, a nation of immigration and we value those who have come here.

But we are also a nation of laws.  So I have to ask the simple question: Why is the scholarship not going to a legal immigrant who has gone through the process of coming here the right way?

I think that is a very fair question, don't you?  Much as we find it inappropriate to provide welfare, education and medical care all free and without obligation to people who have come to the USA illegally, it seems quite inappropriate to make a decision wherein we will reward with a free college education not someone who has properly and legally pursued the immigration path; rather, we are rewarding illegal behavior.

What, for example, might happen after the Obama administration mercifully ends and rational immigration policy ensues?  What might happen if immigration law is enacted that requires illegals to -- and this is a pretty common part of proposals that are out there -- leave the country and restart the legal process to come back, or even pay a big fine, demonstrate competence in English, and go to the back of the line for citizenship?

I mean, if any of those reasonable approaches gets enacted, would you want to be the person who is exposed without the ability to hide, by virtue of receiving a scholarship that requires you to be here illegally to get it?  Are illegals running around Arizona now feeling like they're -- dare we say it -- entitled by virtue of their illegal presence here?  Is that why Prescott University thinks it can do this?

Students are notorious for being unable to see the consequences of their actions.  That this absurd program was dreamed up by a student (it was) is unsurprising.  That it was facilitated by an actual university run by actual adults, however, who can think through those consequences, would be surprising indeed, were it not taking place within the ivory tower of academia.

Where, as we know, rational thought goes to die.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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