Augusta Chronicle

Ga. public colleges report 501 undocumented students

By Walter C. Jones
Morris News Service
Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2010

ATLANTA – As the U.S. Senate was voting to defeat the so-called Dream Act to loosen immigration laws, a panel was voting Tuesday to recommend stiffer policies for how Georgia’s 35 public colleges and universities deal with illegal immigrants.

The schools have admitted 501 students who don’t have documentation to prove their citizenship, but none were found to be receiving scholarships or in-state tuition, according to figures from the University System of Georgia.

Roughly 30 could have taken classroom seats from qualified Georgia applicants.

The Senate failed to pass a cloture motion that would have led to passage of the Dream Act, which was attached to a defense bill that would have also ended the military’s “don’t act/don’t tell” policy on homosexuals. The vote was considered a victory for conservatives.

Meanwhile in Atlanta, the committee is recommending that the Board of Regents require colleges and universities to validate the citizenship of all students seeking the in-state discount on tuition or those seeking admission to any school that has turned away qualified Georgia applicants in the last two years. It would rely on the federal government to validate the citizenship of students applying for federal aid.

The committee, its report and recommendations came in response to public uproar about a student at Kennesaw State University discovered to have been living in the country illegally and attending the school while paying the discounted in-state tuition.

Tuesday’s report was meant to provide a final tally to a series of preliminary reports in recent months, but administrators say the total is likely to change as some students eventually produce valid documentation and the documents provided by others turn out not to be sufficient.

The largest number of undocumented students was the 80 starting this fall at Georgia Perimeter College and the 130 who were eligible to return fall semester there. Georgia Tech only has two entering this fall and two returning. The University of Georgia has two returning but none entering this fall.

Eight schools, like Savannah State University, the Medical College of Georgia, Georgia Southern University and Waycross College have none enrolled without documentation.

Most of the schools have foreign students, but those with valid student visas are not included in the report.

Five institutions – MCG, Tech, UGA, Georgia State University and Georgia College & State University, have enrollment caps and currently must turn away academically qualified Georgia applicants, said University System spokesman John Millsaps. Of these five, three – Tech, UGA and Georgia State – have together admitted 29 undocumented students, he said..

University System Chancellor Erroll Davis said the report, ordered by the Board of Regents, was worthwhile.

“We discovered that we don’t have a problem,” he said.

Regents and critics of the system had raised concerns that there were large numbers of illegal immigrants in the schools who were being subsidized and taking seats from Georgians. The committee learned earlier that students who don’t get the in-state discount pay tuition that more than covers the actual cost of their education.

Davis said after the meeting he hoped the recommended policy changes would stave off legislation that might impose less-flexible rules.

“I’m not going to suggest what the mind of any legislator will put forward, as this point, but I believe that we have addressed every issue that has surfaced,” he said.

One proponent of strict enforcement of immigration rules is D.A. King, president of the Atlanta-based Dustin Inman Society, named for a Georgian killed when struck by a car driven by an illegal immigrant.

King attended Tuesday’s meeting and expressed his distrust in the figures presented and disappointment in the recommended policy changes.

“One American – or one real, legal immigrant – that loses his education in Georgia’s public university system is too many to most mainstream Georgians,” he said.

The full Board of Regents will vote on the recommendations at October’s meeting.

HERE