Blog #2 A College Lifts a Hurdle for Illegal Immigrants

Many illegal immigrants bring their children to the United States and are raised as Americans. There are many people especially Republicans that have set forth to pass legislature making the border patrol more strict in an attempt to stop illegal immigrants and their children from coming across the border. Not only have they passed those types of laws they have also refused to pass laws that help the illegal immigrants children go to school affordably.

The article is about the Metropolitan State University of Denver implementing a new policy lowering the tuition for the children of illegal immigrants that meet their requirements. The president of the college stated that the reason behind this policy change at the University is because the legislation didn’t pass a similar law. He feels that the students deserve an equal opportunity to go to college so that they can get a degree and then contribute to the society in Colorado. In order for the children to receive the discount they have to have gone to a Colorado High School for at least 3 years and they have to earn their diploma or their GED. After meeting those requirements their tuition is lowered from about $11,000 to about $7,157.04 per year which is significantly lower than out-of-state students. There is currently a lot of controversy over this new university policy especially from the Republican Party. They feel like the University overstepped their boundaries because they had a similar law that wasn’t passed in the legislator. They are even going as far as to sue the school because they believe that the university tried to undermine the government and the decision that they made.

In the end I believe that the policy to lower the tuition was a smart idea because the children of illegal immigrants are really victims. They had no choice when it came to coming across the border and because they are considered to be in the lower class they are trying to hold them back from becoming something great one day. This ties in with class inequality because when immigrants and their children get over here they are considered to be lower class people and the people with the power don’t want illegal immigrants nor their children to have any opportunities in this country. As one of the girls in the article stated because that one university changed their policy and prices she is able to focus on school more instead of how she is going to pay for school. Yes they might be immigrants but they deserve an equal chance just as everybody else.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/us/denver-college-policy-aids-illegal-immigrants.html?ref=education