State Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton, has again introduced H.B. 131 in order to change state law on tuition rates in Georgia’s public colleges and tech schools. The goal is to lower the tuition for illegal aliens in Georgia who are recipients of then-President Barack Obama’s 2012 DACA program.
DACA has repeatedly been ruled illegal but allowed it to remain in place for existing DACA recipients.
According to a 2019 11th circuit appellate court decision, DACA does not change the illegal status of recipients except to delay deportation proceedings. Both sides of the debate expect the DACA program to be euthanized altogether by the Supreme Court after another loss for supporters in an October 5, 2022, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals finding. The court upheld an earlier ruling in Texas that DACA is not a lawful program.
Currently, illegal aliens– including DACA recipients– are not eligible for the much lower in-state tuition rate in Georgia.
Having failed several times to pass a bill that would allow the DACA beneficiaries to pay the in-state rate, Carpenter is repeating his effort from the 2021 session to create a new tier called “Opportunity Tuition.” The DACA recipients would be known as “Opportunity students.” Under the language of the legislation, they would pay a small-add on to the in-state rate, not to exceed ten percent. The lowest possibility upcharge would be one percent.
Using posted tuition and fee rates at Kennesaw State University, immigration activist D.A. King reports the cost of a typical fifteen-hour course load per semester for under graduates is $3,449.00 while the out of state rate is $10,483. So if his math is correct, Carpenter’s HB 131, “Work Force Development Act” would allow the unauthorized immigrants with DACA to pay an increase of between $34.49 and $340.49 to attend classes at Georgia’s third largest university.
U.S. citizens and legal immigrants from other most states would pay the entire out-of- state rate.
Carpenter’s bill has been assigned to the House Higher Education Committee. Committee Chairman Chuck Martin, R-Alpharetta took time out of an unrelated hearing to cite the bill and opposition emails that had been sent to committee members. “This does not put people that are in the country illegally in front of others,” he said during a February 1, committee meeting.
King, president of the Marietta-based Dustin Inman Society, is leading an effort to educate legislators on the ramifications of Carpenter’s push, and has written here about the proposed new opportunity tuition rate.
“Our effort has always been to make Georgia as inhospitable to illegal immigration as possible,” says King. “We don’t think rewarding illegal aliens in Georgia with massive savings on tuition in public-funded colleges while Americans and lawful immigrants whose families migrated to Michigan or California pay $7000 dollars more per semester will accomplish that goal.”
Martin says Carpenter’s bill will see debate in his committee.
