CSU extends in-state tuition to first class of immigrants [illegal aliens]
[...] Until this year, students at Colorado colleges without legal U.S. citizenship status qualified for the nonresident rate of tuition, which at Colorado State University exceeds the in-state rate more than three times over.
But when the Colorado Legislature passed the ASSET law this year granting in-state tuition rates to students in Medina’s position, the door to her higher-education dreams swung wide open ...
Thanks to the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which temporarily shelters from deportation those brought to the country without authorization as children, Medina was given a two-year window to establish herself. It enabled her to obtain a driver’s license and to hold a job. She had two over the summer to help pay for college ...
Work brought Medina’s father to the U.S. on a temporary visa. He would work here and periodically return home to Mexico to reunite with his family, mailing home his paychecks in the interim. When he saw the opportunities for education and other advantages that his relatives living in the U.S. and their children enjoyed, he wanted the same for his kids.
“He sent my mom, my sister and I some money so we could come over here to the U.S.,” Medina said. “They saw a big opportunity here for us in education especially.”
It was 2001, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11 had not yet happened when Medina, her younger sister and her mother came to the U.S. to stay. Passage was easy ...