Colleges just don’t ask

At Nevada's seven state universities and colleges, registration officials must know where each student lives to set their tuition, but they don't determine whether high school graduates from Nevada, or their parents, are legal U.S. residents.

"Our mission is to educate all recent high school graduates in Nevada. Period," said Jane Nichols, vice chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs for the Nevada System of Higher Education. "For that group, that is our mission, and we do not require proof of their citizenship status. We think that is good public policy in Nevada."

And despite widespread public debate about the costs of illegal immigration to tax-supported institutions, the recent Nevada Legislature did not spell out any change in that perceived mission.

A new state law will require students to provide their citizenship or immigration status when applying for a state-sponsored scholarship. But while older students, foreign and out-of-state students and others are required to disclose their citizenship or immigration status, recent high school graduates are not, Nichols said.

Recent high school graduates from Nevada comprise nearly 80 percent of the students at state universities, but the percentage at community colleges is much lower, she said.

However, the Board of Regents, which oversees operation of the university system, does track the ethnic makeup of its students, in part because one of its priorities is to increase the number of minorities, according to the System of Higher Education's 2005-06 Diversity Report.

The 73-page report states, "The Board is committed to increasing the number of students, faculty and staff representative of minority racial and ethnic groups in the state."

According to the report, Hispanics are the only minority group from which the percentage of students is lower than the same group's proportion in the state's general population. However the number of Hispanic students more than doubled in a decade, from 5,788 in 1996 to 12,366 in 2005. In booming Nevada, Caucasian student numbers increased even more, but the growth was only 13.6 percent compared to 113.6 percent for Hispanics. Asians in the system increased 129 percent.

With regard to tuition costs, 86 percent of all students are from Nevada and pay less for their education than the 14 percent from outside Nevada.

Among Hispanic students, 92 percent are from Nevada, according to system enrollment figures.

Based on the average number of credits taken by a student at a state university, such as the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the yearly cost for an out-of-state student would be $10,810 in addition to the approximately $2,802 in registration fees that Nevada students pay, according to figures provided by the university system.

Merely charging out-of-state tuition to one illegal immigrant now paying only in-state rates would raise state revenues by $10,810. At the less-expensive College of Southern Nevada (formerly Community College of Southern Nevada) the same change would generate an additional $5,385 per student.

State officials also don't know how many illegal immigrants are among the 20,962 college students enrolled last semester who have received Millennium Scholarships from the state, which total more than $52 million for students currently enrolled. And officials don't know how many of the scholarship recipients are U.S. citizens born in the United States to parents who are in the country illegally.

State Sen. Joe Heck, R-Henderson, introduced a bill in the Legislature this year that would have prohibited illegal immigrants from receiving state financial aid, but it died in the Democratic Assembly. Heck said during the session that illegal immigrants are not eligible for federal financial aid and that the proposal would have brought Nevada into line with federal law.

What survived was state Senate Bill 5, which was approved during the special legislative session that followed the regular session. It was signed by Gov. Jim Gibbons on June 13.

Starting in the 2008-2009 school year, students seeking the state-sponsored Millennium Scholarships will be required to sign an affidavit declaring their eligibility for the money and their citizenship or immigration status, according to the law.

Nichols said state officials are still ironing out implementation of the new law, which is similar to one in California. She said it does not disqualify immigrants but requires that they seek to become U.S. citizens.

Hispanic students at two-year state institutions, such as CSN, represented nearly 19 percent of the 50,917 students enrolled during the spring 2007 semester, according to data from the System for Higher Education. Of those 9,475 students, 1,323 were eligible for a scholarship and 1,180 of them had received such funds.

As of that semester, those students during their college careers had received $2 million of the nearly $16 million allocated to 7,689 students at those schools, according to the data.

Hispanic students at four-year universities represented nearly 12 percent of the 26,235 students enrolled during the spring 2007 semester, according to state scholarship data.

Of those, 1,739 were eligible for Millennium Scholarship funds during their college careers and 1,702 had received money, according to the data. As of that semester, those students during their college careers had received less than $6.4 million of the $52 million allocated to students at four-year state universities.

Enrollment at Nevada's single four-year state college was only 1,177, and 177 of those students are Hispanic. Forty-eight of them had received $142,840 during their college careers, according to the data.