Fullwood: Offer Undocumented Immigrants' Kids In-State Tuition

State Rep. Reggie Fullwood, D-Jacksonville, has filed a bill that would allow students who are legal citizens, but are children of undocumented immigrants, to pay in-state college tuition.

House Bill 441, End Tuition Discrimination, would allow the students to pay the less expensive in-state tuition if they graduated a Florida high school and are seeking a four-year degree.

Floridas current policy denies many United States citizens a pathway to a better life because they are forced to pay much higher college tuition than students paying in-state rates, Fullwood stated in a release. Many of these citizens come from struggling families and simply cant afford the higher tuition. My goal is simply to make college affordable for all United States citizens and Florida residents so they can get good jobs and improve Floridas economy. This is truly an issue of fairness and equality that must be addressed.

Fullwood noted that he began researching the bill after seeing reports that legal citizen have given up plans to attend college because of the more expensive cost of out-of-state tuition and the fear of exposing on college applications parents that were undocumented residents.

On Thursday, five Florida high school graduates, each born in the United States, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a lawsuit against the state commissioner of education claiming they were required to pay the out-of-state tuition when enrolling at state colleges because they could not provide documents on the immigration status of theirparents.