Bladensburg High School senior Nemesis Zambrano will be eligible for in-state college tuition next fall, but many of her classmates won’t, due to their immigration status. Knowing their families can’t afford out-of-state tuition, they’re dropping out of Bladensburg and taking minimum wage jobs, she said.
‘‘I have friends who think they can’t go to college, so they drop out of high school,” said Zambrano, 17, part of a handful of Prince George’s County students who attended a Monday rally at the University of Maryland, College Park in support of a law that would grant in-state tuition to Maryland high school students who do not have legal immigration status.
‘‘They think there’s no hope for them, but they’re all very smart kids with potential,” Zambrano said.
More than 70 people, including high school and college students, attended the rally in support of the bill. But state lawmakers and immigrant rights advocates said the legislation — Senate Bill 591, sponsored by Sen. Paul Pinsky (D-Dist. 22) of University Park — would fall short of the necessary support this year in Annapolis. Activists who oppose the proposed law said they were relieved to see that it was stalled in committee and would likely not get a full vote before the session ends April 9. They say it threatens to allow undocumented immigrants into college while Maryland residents could lose their place in a college classroom.
‘‘There are only a finite number of spots,” said Susan Payne, a longtime Montgomery County resident and executive director of the Maryland Coalition for Immigration Reform, a group that has testified several times on immigration-related bills this year in Annapolis. ‘‘For every illegal alien who is given a spot, there is a [Maryland citizen] who doesn’t get in.”
But Pinsky said students who graduated at the top of their high school class were not considering college because of the daunting out-of-state tuition.
‘‘If someone can go to Northwestern High School and get a 4.0, why shouldn’t they be able to go to College Park and pay a reasonable tuition?” he asked. ‘‘Everyone says, ‘Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.’ Well, that’s what these people want to do. ... If they are Maryland students who are accepted, they should be able to go to higher education institutions like their neighbors.”
The Board of Regents for the University System of Maryland controls tuition policies for public state colleges and universities, including which students are eligible for in-state tuition. Currently, a student must be a Maryland resident for 12 consecutive months before being considered for in-state tuition status.
This year’s bill would grant in-state tuition to anyone who graduated from a state high school and could prove the student’s family paid state income taxes, among other requirements. Similar legislation was passed by lawmakers in 2003, but vetoed by then-Gov. Robert R. Ehrlich Jr. Ehrlich gave a list of reasons for why he nixed the bill, including that it would reward illegal behavior.
‘‘Maryland citizens are under no obligation to pay for the tuition of a citizen of another country,” said Payne, who took video and pictures at the campus rally. ‘‘People don’t want this to be a sanctuary for illegal activity.”
The difference between resident and non-resident tuitions can be more than $10,000 annually at Maryland colleges and universities. At the University of Maryland, College Park, in-state tuition during the spring 2008 semester is $3,984. Non-residents pay $11,103 this semester.
Prince George’s Community College charges $5,990 per semester for non-county state residents, and $8,630 for non-state residents. Prince George’s residents pay about $3,710 per semester. More than 6,000 of the University of Maryland’s 25,000 undergraduate students are from outside the state.
Laws that allow undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition have passed in 10 states since 2001, mostly in the west. Several other states are considering similar legislation this year.
Ricardo Flores, director of advocacy for the Maryland Multicultural Youth Centers, said many undocumented students were brought to the state as children and attended Maryland public schools through high school, just like their classmates with legal residency.
‘‘Right now ... leadership in the state of Maryland doesn’t get that,” said Flores, who spoke at the rally. ‘‘These kids deserve the opportunity to go to college and [pay in-state tuition].”
Zambrano, the Bladensburg senior, said she applied to the University of Maryland and Goucher College in Baltimore, where she will pay in-state tuition if she is accepted. She encouraged her friends, all Bladensburg seniors, to apply to college, but knowing they would have to pay out-of-state tuition, they decided not to.
Several students from middle and high schools in Prince George’s, Baltimore and Montgomery counties spoke on McKeldin Mall on the College Park campus. Many said their grades suffered over the last year as they have been disheartened and distracted by the prospect of out-of-state tuition.
‘‘Most of us can’t afford that,” said Edgar Mondragon, 18, a Bladensburg High senior. ‘‘And because of that, a lot of us have to abandon our dreams.”
E-mail Dennis Carter at dcarter@gazette.net.
