AG may, however, says the Arizona Supreme Court, sue where colleges and universities have granted in-state tuition for students without legal status
Arizona’s Attorney General sued the Arizona Board of Regents in September 2017, alleging the regents had disregarded a constitutional provision that requires state universities to be as close to free as possible. According to the lawsuit, over a 15-year-period the regents had raised tuition from about $2,600 a year to as much as $12,228 a year for in-state students.
The court rejected this claim saying that if it allowed the Attorney General to proceed with the action, it would “mark a significant expansion in the Attorney General’s power that neither the constitution nor legislature contemplated.”
In a second claim in the lawsuit, the Attorney General had challenged the ability of universities and college to permit in-state tuition for students without legal status. In August 2019 the Arizona Board of Regents voted 8-0, with state Superintendent Kathy Hoffman to extend a tuition rate that’s 150% of in-state tuition to undocumented students. The rate was first created by the Regents for students who had legal status in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
In the spring semester 2019 it was estimated by the University of Arizona that 329 students at Arizona State University paid the 150% rate, called the “Non-Resident Tuition Rate for Arizona High School Graduates.” That rate is about $16,000.
It is not clear how many students paid the 150% rate after the change. However, each year about 2,000 unauthorized immigrants graduate from Arizona high schools, the tenth-most in the U.S., according to a report released in May by the Migration Policy Institute.
The Arizona Supreme Court said the Attorney General did have the authority to bring an action against the universities and colleges if it involved charging in-state tuition for students without legal status. The court pointed out that a state statute specifically provided the attorney general with power to “recover illegally paid public monies.”
In a ruling a year ago, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled against Maricopa Community Colleges on tuition rates for DACA students, saying they did not qualify for in-state tuition. State universities, following the community colleges, were granting in-state tuition to DACA recipients.
An estimated 2,000 or more DACA recipients attended community colleges in Maricopa County, and nearly 300 were enrolled at a state university in Arizona when the ruling was issued. Once the court handed down the decision, the Maricopa Community Colleges saw a sharp decline in their DACA enrollments.