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6B Wednesday September 10, 2014 // The Statement
How the new in-state tuition policy impacts international students
by Amabel Karoub
On Tuesday afternoon, Public Policy senior
Daniel Morales sat in Starbucks with his leath-
er-clad laptop in front of him. He seemed to
speak without breathing, flowing from topic
to topic as if someone might try to silence him
at any moment.
For most of his life, Morales was an undoc-
umented student. Born in Mexico, he came to
the United States illegally when he was very
young. Ifhe had not been able to obtain a green
card, he would never have been able to afford
to attend the University.
Morales leads the Coalition of Tuition
Equality, a student group that fought for in-
state tuition for undocumented students
- and won. As non-citizens, these students
cannot be considered Michigan residents,
despite the fact that many of them have lived
in Michigan for most of their lives and gradu-
ated from Michigan high schools. Prior to
changes to the tuition policy, these students
were forced to pay out-of-state tuition - a
whopping price of over $40,000 for tuition
per year. An in-state tuition far more than the
average rate of roughly $15,000 per year. Even
worse, these students were unable to gain
any sort of financial aid. Most need-based
financial aid comes through federal avenues,
and federal law prevents this aid from being
offered to non-citizens.
According to Morales, students have been
rendered unable to attend the University due
to cost, leaving the undocumented popula-
tion at the University at a total of about five
students.
"The vast majority of those accepted
couldn't come," Morales said.
The new tuition policy went into place in
January 2014 and offers three avenues for
gaining in-state tuition: Michigan residence,
attending Michigan schools and service in the
armed forces. The Michigan schools pathway
is aimed at undocumented students. As long as .
they attended two years of middle school and
three years of high school in Michigan, they
can receive in-state tuition, regardless of citi-
zenship.
This avenue is justified because students
who attended Michigan schools for five years
have also paid Michigan taxes for that long.
University Spokesperson Rick Fitzgerald said
the discounted in-state tuition is meant to
reward Michigan taxpayers.
"The out-of-state tuition more accurately
reflects what a Michigan education costs to
provide to a student," Fitzgerald said. "The in-
IWstate tuition is discounted because of the sup-
port that the University gets from the State of
Michigan as a public institution."
Although undocumented students can, as of
January 2014, apply for in-state tuition, most
still did not come to the University. Despite
the University's policy changes, federal law
still prevents them from obtainingneed-based
financial aid. For this reason, after the tuition
policy was changed, Morales said the next
goal was to find a way for undocumented stu-
dents to get on an equal financial footing.
Starting this semester, CTE has seen some
partial success on their second front as well.
The University set up a pilot program that
offers need-based financial aid to undocu-
mented students. The program will be in place
for the 2014-2015 year, and then reassessed
next year. The fund contains up to $450,000 to
be distributed. Fitzgerald said the reason this
aid is available to these students is because it is
not from a federal resource.
"It's all funds provided by U of M," Fitzger-
here a long time, but are not citizens. These
international students can now gain in-state
tuition if they attended most of middle and
high school in the U.S.
"It turned out that alot of people are bene-
fitting from this that weren't necessarily CTE's
intention," Morales said. "It's an unintended
consequence, buta positive consequence."
One such student is LSA senior Monica
Choo. Having moved to Michigan from South
Korea as a young girl, Choo considered her-
self a Michigan resident as she entered col-
lege, despite her lack of a green card. Choo
was deeply disappointed upon discovering she
nent residence status in the U.S., her mother
still had ties in South Korea. For this reason,
the University still would not give Choo in-
state tuition.
"They wanted a letter from the government
in Korea telling them that my Mom no longer
has any connection with the Korean govern-
ment." Choo said. "They were like, sorry, even
though your Dad has a permanent job here,
even though everyone in your family has paid
taxes, sorry, it doesn't count."
In May of2014, the summer after her sopho-
more year, Choo heard from a friend about the
tuition policy changes, which began in Janu-
ary. At that point, Choo discovered she was
eligible. She applied and, finally, was awarded
in-state tuition.
LSA sophomore Hangil Lee has also bene-
fitted from the changed tuition policies. When
he was in 5th grade, Lee moved from South
Korea to Troy, Michigan because his father
wanted a better education for him and his
sister. Had Lee not heard the tuition policies
mightbe changed, he would not have attended
the University, as four years of out-of-state
tuition would have been too steep for his fam-
ily to afford.
"My sister actually couldn't go to U of M,"
Lee said. "She had to go to MSU, which will
give you in-state tuition if you pay five years of
taxes."
Having gone through middle and high
school in the U.S., Lee knew he would be able
to gain in-state tuition if the change went
through, so his family decided to pay the out-
of-state tuition for his first semester - and it
paid off. Lee was granted in-state tuition start-
ing winter semester freshman year.
Despite not being in the limelight of discus-
sion, Choo and Lee have benefitted from the
tuition change. However, even though these
international students qualify for in-state
tuition, as non-citizens they are still ineligible
for need-based financial aid, and scholarships
are few and far between. Lee said the schol-
arships offered through the University are
extraordinarily competitive between interna-
tional students.
"It's pretty much almost impossible to get
them," he said.
There is a fund of $450,000 set up for
what is, at least this year, a small population
of undocumented students. Morales said stu-
dents are likely to use less than a quarter of the
funds.
"Let's say the number is between four and
six," Morales said. "Most of these kids are
going to be getting $20-25,000 covered. We'll
probablyuse maybe $100,000. Maybe."
Morales said it is likely the funding will be
reduced if the pilot financial aid program is
renewed. Rather than reducing these funds,
Choo said she believed that administrators
could allocate more dollars toward helping
international students residing in Michigan.
on the record
"Brady, it's time to stop the charade. It's not 2011 anymore.
The fanbase is turning on you, people are calling for your
head, and it's your fault.'
- ALEJANDRO ZUNIGA, Managing Sports Editor on
Michigan Football's 31-0 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday
"What's good for one student is not necessarily the best
place for the next student. There's just no number one
school for everybody, no matter what the rankings say."
- RICK FITZGERALD, University Spokesperson on Michigan's
fall in 2015 U.S. News rankings
"You don't use your American accent when you talk
to them in English. Air collapses inside your neck
in the moments before you catch yourself swerving
between dialects. There's a brief shock accompanying
the realization that you can switch. You switch. You're
ashamed of this"
- AKSIHAY SETH, Managi ngArts Editor in "Michigan in
Color"
PHOTO BY RUBY WALLAU
"As I was exploring this genre of illness and disability narratives, I realized the stories I was most
interested in hearing were childhood cancer fiarratives. Those stories are hardly told, and even
when they are told, they're told by parents or health professionals - children themselves never have
the chance to tell their own story."
-MEDICAL STUDENT TRISHA PAUL, ALUM '14
Trisha Paul will be releasing her research project into a book, "Chronicling Childhood Cancer" at
Literati Bookstore on Mon., Sept.15. The project was apart of her Honors Senior Thesis in English.
ald said. "Normally financial aid can range
from federal grants, to work-study positions,
to federally subsidized loans, and all of those
things require federal forms. The U of M
forms can be administered differently."
Morales said there are students who were
able to benefit from the in-state tuition as
well as the scholarship fund, and came to
the University. However, he said CTE did not
encourage undocumented students to apply to
the University for the 2014-2015 school year,
because the fate of the scholarship fund was
uncertain until mid-July.
"It's a very new thing," Morales said. "The
scholarship just kicked in so we're not going
to see any of it until one year from now, when
we have a new class in the fall. That's when I
think we'll see a decent number of undocu-
mented studentsfor the first time."
Although the full benefits to undocument-
ed students are still uncertain, a separate
group has already benefited from the changed
tuition policies - documented international
students. In all of the hype surrounding the
tuition changes aimed at undocumented stu-
dents, these students went unmentioned. The
international students who benefit are those
who are in Michigan legally and have lived
would be considered an international student
at the University. She had to pay out-of-state
tuition freshman year despite having lived in
Michigan for over a decade.
"I was like, if I'm not a Michigan resident,
and if I've been living in Michigan the entire
time I've been in the U.S., then what resident
am I?" she said.
The summer afterward, Choo's father
was sponsored for a green card through his
employers. Because Choo was under 21at the
time, and she was able to get a green card as
a dependent. Even after she became aperma-
nent resident of the U.S., Choo could not gain
in-state tuition. The old tuition policy had
strict requirements on who would be consid-
ered a Michigan resident. Choo explained,
"Starting my sophomore year, I was still pay-
ing out of state tuition because I couldn't dem-
onstrate to the residency classification office
that both my parents would permanently be in
the U.S," Choo said. "Despite the fact that my
Dad was living in the U.S.and he had a job here
and my father, my mother, and myself paid
taxes to the Michigan government, to the U of
M classification office, apparently that wasn't
enough to demonstrate that I was a Michigan
resident." Although Choo's father had perma-
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