The Salt Lake Tribune published an article yesterday regarding a law that I did not even know existed. Apparently in 2002 the Utah state legislature passed a bill that allowed all undocumented immigrants that graduated from a Utah high school to pay in-state tuition at state colleges. It didn’t matter if the student and/or parents were in the process of gaining citizenship either, all that mattered was that they graduate from a Utah high school. As I read this I could see the reasoning behind the law. It was forward thinking in trying to educate the lower class of society by making education more affordable. As a result this could lower the crime rate and improve the standard of living for that person who chose to gain an education. It would also better society by helping to educate a person who otherwise wouldn’t be educated, and in turn helping to create them into a person who contributes to society as opposed to burdening society. It sounds great doesn’t it? That is until the unseen affects are uncovered. Its great to make education available to those who can’t afford it by offering a government subsidized education (in-state tuition), but do you offer that to undocumented immigrants who don’t pay taxes? Is that fair and just to offer the same education at the same price to a citizen of the state who pays taxes and to an undocumented immigrant who does not?
This hasn’t really been much of an issue until recently. With a slumping economy and education funds being cut from the state’s budget can the state afford to continue to offer this to undocumented immigrants? Take for example USU, who has already made drastic cuts, cutting out the philosophy department, unpaid furloughs being taken by the staff, and the list goes on, can they afford it? With still another $8 million in budget cuts the University has yet to apply, and more staff and faculty to lose their positions in the future can the state really afford to give a subsidized education to those who don’t pay taxes which support the very education they are given a discounted rate for? The unseen affect is that allowing undocumented persons to receive an in-state price allows more undocumented persons to afford an education, which means that more will attend an in-state school, which by virtue of budget cuts and downsizing faculty, fills up the classroom. This leads to a higher student to teacher ratio which leads to a lower education overall for all students at the college. Not to mention that with caps in enrollment at certain colleges, by allowing more undocumented persons to attend school at a discounted price it will leave out those who would like to attend that are citizens and who do pay taxes. My point is that the unseen affect of some of the citizens not being able to gain an education because of this law probably wasn’t evaluated closely enough when the law was passed. But now that the affect is being seen Utah is unsure whether they should get rid of the law. It is simple really they wouldn’t allow me into Sam’s Club to buy their goods without having a membership which I pay a yearly fee for, so why should we allow those without citizenship to receive a discounted education if they don’t pay the price like the rest of us?
Here are some links
February 3rd, 2010 at 5:41 pm
While I can see the argument on each side of this issue, I think that this bill produces a great incentive for undocumented high school students to not only attend college, but (if they haven’t already) begin the process of obtaining legal documentation. College is simply a means to an end, and that end is to obtain an education/skills that will help you to get a more specialized job after graduation. Yet, under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, employers who hire undocumented workers are penalized. Thus, today businesses who hire college graduates are accountable to government in regard to who they hire and they follow these regulations. So why would an undocumented Utah high school graduate go to college, earn a degree, expend thousands of dollars, just to be un-hirable in the U.S? I highly doubt the end he has in mind is immigrating back to Mexico. I like the law and I think the incentives are in the right place, let’s just hope those who it’s supposed to assist take advantage of it. It won’t only better their lives, but they will add to the future growth of our economy.
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:49 pm
Let me preface by saying that I agree whole-heartedly with this law. I feel this is the definition of making lemonade out of lemons from a public policy standpoint. Moving on, I disagree with the author when he implies that this action is subsidized beyond the subsidy that already exists for students attending public universities in Utah. I don’t see how this any different from any other Utah high school student, short of the fact that they are here by illegal means. The law specifies that these students must be graduates of a Utah high school. How is that any different from the preconditions for other Utah citizens? If you or I moved from Idaho, or New Hampshire, or any stateside locale and obtained residency, we would be subject to the conditions for native Utahns seeking higher education in state.
I also wanted to comment on our discussion in class on this topic. The point was raised that this law will increase the population of illegal immigrants (leeching on our welfare system) because it increases the incentive for immigrants to move to Utah. This is a logical argument to make if you assume perfect information. However, it’s here that I have to disagree with this line of thought. How can an incentive have effect if actors don’t know the incentive exists? The answer is: it can’t. If citizens in the state of Utah didn’t know this statute existed, how are Mexicans, and especially the type of Mexicans that would feel the need to immigrate to the U.S illegally, going to be that well informed on the current state of higher education policy in the state of Utah?
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Thinking about this article led me to research the International student fees here at USU. That then led me to this one question, if the legislature is going to allow an undocumented person who graduated from a Utah high school attend college in Utah, are they going to pay the Resident rate or the Non-resident rate? If it is the resident rate, well then Utah is subsidizing their education to some extent, but if it is the non-resident rate the undocumented student would be bearing the full cost of their education. If that one point were defined, I think most of the complaints would be silenced, if they were forced to pay the non-Resident rate. It would be a net benefit for the school, and for the state. One more well educated person who is now paying taxes at a higher income, that is of course supposing they were able to find a job, and didn’t move back to their country of orgin after they graduated.
February 4th, 2010 at 10:40 am
The argument is short sighted and prejudiced. A wise French economist, Frederic Bastiat made a fundamental observation in his work The Law stating that whenever you use the law or government to take from some to give privileges to others you are committing legal plunder. The majority of people in Utah don’t benefit from the taxes they pay to support USU. All the talk of less crime and improving society is smokescreen. Why should anyone be forced to pay for someone else’s education? The moral argument is irrefutable. The author of the post says he pays taxes so he is entitled to the subsidy. Hogwash! The subsidy far exceeds the taxes he or his family pays. It is impossible to redistribute equally to all taxpayers the benefits of the plunder, if only because the bureaucrats are paid off the top. There was a political motivation for passing the law, and there are always unintended consequences from government interventions, usually the opposite of the intentions.
Immigration is an unavoidable and unstoppable global phenomenon. Although there are many different arguments about the economic, political, social, and cultural advantages of immigration, there is one thing that all sides should agree on: there is no “right” to immigrate if it means trespassing on someone else’s property. Undocumented immigrants already get free health care, free lunch, free immunizations, and free precollege education and free whatever else they want, so why not free college education? Maybe they don’t pay income tax, but they pay every other sort.
In the case of Plyler v. Doe (1982), the Supreme Court required the states to provide all children – American citizens or foreigners, legal immigrants or illegal immigrants – with a free public education. The case began as a class action lawsuit on behalf of Mexican children in Texas who were in the United States illegally. The state of Texas had passed a law in 1975 that denied state funds for the education of children not “legally admitted” to the United States. Although the Court acknowledged that “unsanctioned entry into the United States is a crime,” and that “those who have entered unlawfully are subject to deportation,” the Court ruled that the Texas statute violated the “equal protection” clause of the 14th amendment. Because of this case public schools are now not allowed to question the immigration status of families seeking to enroll their children. Some states even allow long-term unauthorized immigrants to receive in-state tuition at state colleges and universities, if they meet certain requirements. This is a direct consequence of unrestricted immigration. The federal government should not have any control over local, state, or private schools, and state-supported education should be eliminated altogether. Costs would go down to where the markets dictate and individual institutions could decide for themselves who they’ll admit and at what price.
February 5th, 2010 at 11:22 am
In response to our class discussion, as well as some of those who have not approved my stand point I would like to clarify the matter. Undocumented Immigrants truly are a net gain to society. I was not suggesting getting rid of them or denying them rights to a higher public education in the Utah. What I am suggesting is that we as those who are taxpayers should have right to a government subsidized education over those who are not. If undocumented immigrants are already a net gain to our society then why should we give them more money than what is needed? As was stated in previous comments we do support them with healthcare, immunizations, and a pre college education. This is very true and I can’t disagree with these facts. So if we already support them in all these faculties why shouldn’t we support them by lowering the cost of their education? The reason is that if they are granted in-state tuition the undocumented immigrant doesn’t have to support the full costs of their education. The cost will not simply disappear, it then becomes the states responsibility to cover the difference, and where does the state receive it’s funding to cover the difference? Taxes. Granted not all people in the state will benefit from the education received by those who attend state colleges, but regardless of whether or not they support it they are paying for it. That is why nearly half the state wants to repeal the law according to the article that was posted. If given the choice nearly half the state wants undocumented immigrants to pay the full price for their education. The undocumented immigrant will become more of a net gain to our society if they are paying the state for their education, versus the state paying them.
February 11th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
In regards to Hazlitt’s Helper’s comment, “The federal government should not have any control over local, state, or private schools, and state-supported education should be eliminated altogether. Costs would go down to where the markets dictate and individual institutions could decide for themselves who they’ll admit and at what price.” I have a few significant reasons to oppose this logic.
First, if you look to the founder’s for your ideals of what the government should do, one needs not look farther than Jefferson for the first federal schools. Beyond this, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the privatization of education would lead to an educated society, better schools, or lower prices. If it hasn’t been made clear as of yet, I am not a great fan of government solutions, however education is one of the most important purposes of a government. First, as has been mentioned especially in relation to this article, the poor lose in an open market. Why does this matter? Well it only matters if you believe that the American Dream should only be a dream. If education was privatized, and if it became a market driven force, there needs to be some foresight into the economic ramifications.
The first drawback of privatized education that I can see is that those who fall by the wayside would be the poor, not the stupid. If schools could bar out students they would want the richest. This also leads to another major flaw. For a market to work there must be close substitutes. If education was privatized for the purposes stated there would have to be two schools of every level in all cities large enough to warrant starting two schools. Furthermore, if schools had to balance their accounts with the exactness of a corporation what would go first? The learning time intensive courses as well as the electives. Why have a library, physics, debate team, or chemistry program that costs money when a school can just do low cost courses? The only people who could get into a school would be those with parents who already have good jobs and educations. If there were not enough given alternative schools for a market to function there is absolutely no reason to believe that school prices would go down. In fact, given that universities, high schools, middle schools, and elementaries make very little revenue as things stand, if the systems were privatized the only way they could survive would be to increase fees, cut scholarships, and only accept those students who will most likely be able to stay in school longest without graduating. This could be accomplished two or more ways, one would be that less be taught over a longer period of time, or second there could be minimum times in which students could go to school before they could graduate.
Education, as stated in a prior comment, is an externality. Those who need it most (both children and the poor), need it to be provided most. The law letting illegal immigrants receive an education in Utah after graduating from a Utah high school is also a good idea. One top priority item that hasn’t yet been broached, is that the students who were here to attend high school, are usually not the illegal immigrants who immigrated here, they are the children of them. If nothing else, our country was founded upon the principle that children are not to be punished for the actions of their parents. If you don’t believe me, look to the Constitution which prohibits the punishment of the members of one’s family.
February 16th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Re: Sharik Peck
First, is it possible that you are having difficulty transcending your own public schooling? It is hard to imagine something you’ve never seen. You say there would have to be two schools at every level, but a market would not create two schools, but dozens or scores. Are there only two kinds of anything the market provides?
Second, I’d like to know more about these federal schools of Jefferson’s. Constitutionally, there is no mention of a federal role in education so it falls under 9th and 10th amendments.
Then there is this question: Why is it important to governments to control education? The answer is self-evident, and reason enough for liberty loving parents and people to control it, not government. There was an article recently about the Texas State board of education rewriting the standards for history content in public schools, and it was a story about the political, as in Republican vs. Democrat, wrangling for control of the history books that will be used for the next ten years in Texas. Look at all the political tyrants in history (including recent and present history) and you will see their uniform efforts to control education.
You say there is absolutely no reason to believe that private education would lead to an educated society. No reason that you can think of, I guess. How about the fact that literacy rates were higher in the US before the general adoption of government education than since, and have been on a steady decline ever since? How about the Federalist Papers as an example of general reading material for the uneducated common man of 1788, which most college students today can barely grasp, let alone compose? How about part of being considered “educated” in the founders time often included fluency in Latin and or several other languages?
As for the poor, see http://www.schoolandstate.org/Case/case6.htm and related. As I started before, Bastiat is good on education as well. Government is not a shining light of knowledge able to shower intelligence on all. It can only use force to take from some and give to others. (He phrased it better than I.)
Here is another good argument about it from the Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2007/03/04/a_call_for_separation_of_school_and_state/
March 28th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Sorry for the length of time between my posts, I am unaccustomed to blogging and could not find the topic again for some reason.
Re: Hazlitts Helper
Your first observation is not possible, because I was not fully educated in a public school system, in fact I had to be taught Algebra and Geometry on my own by a text book, which is a much worse way of learning than a classroom. Then, the statement is made that there would be many schools that spring up, but the fatal flaw of this argument is not readilly seen when you think of the market on a large scale of course there are alternatives of products. That is not the issue however, there are not many alternatives of providers. Many stores does not imply at all many competitors. In all of cache valley for the retail of specific items there are between 1 and a maximum of 10 different providers for any given item. Yes there may be 2 walmarts and a Sam’s Club, but there is only one provider. Our society is keyed to 1st and 2nd place theory. To compete with Walmart and Sam’s Club’s we have Lee’s, and Smith’s on the grocery level, Shopko, and others on the electronics level. If you turn to Pizza to detach from Walmart, you find Dominoes, Pizza Hut, Little Ceasars, and various smaller retailers, but they sell the same pizza, and if you’ve noticed it has gravitated toward peparoni for aproximately $5 a pizza across the board. In reality, a free market discourages inovation on a retail level at which you suggest we put education. The fringes are left behind because they are fringes and not the mainstream. There is nich markets that spring up for fringes, but there is significant capital required to start any buisiness, so areas inhabited by poorer people attract less entreprenurial attention to the fringes. I am sorry, but the posted http://www.schoolandstate.org/Case/case6.htm is quite biased and does not actually reach the conclusions that its headings hearald. For instance, “A free market in schooling would open incredible opportunity to the poor as philanthropists, churches, civic groups and all the people who already give of their hard-earned money worked to provide true opportunity. It is already happening in many areas, but parents and the people who wish to help find themselves between a rock and hard place — with the kids still trapped in public schools, there is only so much they can do. With tax money freed up and more private schools opening, opportunity will flourish.” means nothing, it does not prove that such individuals exist, but even assuming that they do, there are private education facilities now in existence that disprove that well meaning people would step in to cater to the needs of children that need it because education has not reprivatised itself. Also the statement, “With tax money freed up and more private schools opening, opportunity will flourish” is unwarented. It may sound like it makes sence, but as with many statements contained in the article it is all rhetoric and no warrants. A paper of claims can be writen well, but given no proof it is worth less than the paper, or in this case the cyberspace it is printed on. Hitler was a good speachmaker, that doesn’t mean that what he said was correct.
As to Jefferson and the first federally chartered schools, there is not much more to say than that from the beggining of our nation we have had publicly sanctioned education. The origina;l federal schools of course were colleges of higher learning for white males only, but that does not detract from the fact that they were federally created and funded from some of the very first presidencies including those who were recognized framers and or founders.
In reguards to the statement that literacy rates were higher before the adoption of public education and that the federalist papers were well read, that is a blatant statistical miscalcualtion. If you use the wrong denominator it is amazing what results you can get, even if they are wrong they can be quite impresive. The problem is that in the literacy statistics of the era those that were counted were those that held land, had money, and had the opportunity to obtain education. The women of the time were rarely counted and never were the poor. The federalist papers were written for those who were well educated, had money, had land, and could and/or would vote. When compared to the population at the time it is the equivalent of the proportin in moder time that have a doctorate degree in law to the general population. Even the pamphlet Common Sense which was more widely read (which was in by far easier terms) was written directly catered to the linguistics of the time. Yes, it was considered educated to have a grasp of Latin, but in modern times it is still considered educated to know Latin, or Mandrin, the problem is that the common person then did no more know Latin than the person now knows Mandrin. In fact in the general populace there are probably more who now know Mandrin, Latin, or other languages.
To wrap up, the point at which education became universaly public is the point at which the general population was counted. If you look at the time when education was publicized, the literacy rates were below 50% for the general population and since then it has grown to about 90%. While it is very true that the government should have much less of a hand in the choosing of curriculum, it is not true, or rather there is absolutely no reason to believe that it is true that the government should have no hand in the fact that education exists.