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Nearly 400 students from throughout Arizona’s three state universities have lost their eligibility to receive in-state tuition and government-funded financial aid as a result of Proposition 300.
Prop 300, passed by more than 70 percent of Arizona voters in November 2006, restricts any student who cannot provide proof of their legal status in the U.S. from receiving state funded financial aid.
Students are also denied status as in-state residents and are thus charged out-of-state tuition rates.
As a requirement of Prop 300, all three state schools were required to submit a report to the joint legislative budget committee on Jan. 1 on the legal status of every student.
In the report submitted by NAU, the office of enrollment management and student affairs reported 20 students have not yet verified their legal status with university administration.
In addition, there are 54 non-Arizona students at NAU who have not yet verified their legal status.
All unverified students are now being charged out-of-state tuition and receiving no state-funded aid.
The number of students unable to verify their legal status at ASU and U of A were significantly larger.
ASU reported 207 students are “unverifiable due to their inability to provide the requisite documentation.”
And at U of A, 119 students were reclassified from residents to non-residents according to their report.
Six of those came forward and said they could not provide the necessary documentation.
Similar to NAU, all ASU and U of A students who have not been verified are now being charged the out-of-state bill.
Despite being faced with a tuition bill more than double than before, some undocumented students have found help from their universities.
The ASU foundation through private donors raised and distributed approximately $1.8 million in scholarship money specifically to students who were affected by Proposition 300.
The U of A foundation, through private donors, also fronted the bill for some of their undocumented students. According to U of A foundation officials, scholarship money was raised through private community sources, civic organizations, individuals and other private sources to help aid their students.
However, no money passed through the U of A foundation itself, said Dana Wier, vice president of communications and marketing for the foundation.
Wier said the U of A foundation only facilitated raising money but did not distribute any of it and could not disclose the dollar amount.
The distribution of privately raised funds to undocumented students garnered some negative attention for ASU foundation.
After raising funds and distributing them directly through the foundation, Arizona state treasurer Dean Martin said ASU directly violated Proposition 300 because funds automatically became public once they were deposited and disbursed through ASU foundations state account.
Martin subsequently requested that the Arizona Board of Regents investigate the matter to discover any possible violations of Prop 300. He added that ASU may not be in violation of the law, but in violation of the spirit of Prop 300.
In an article published in The Lumberjack in September 2007, Martin said he did not believe ASU foundation officials meant to break the law but they may not have realized what they were doing.
In the aftermath of Proposition 300 many universities struggled to find a feasible and practical way to implement the new law. And now that results are being seen, some are saying the results are not worth the means it takes to get them.
“The schools are spending tons of money to enforce this law but the results are not worth it,” said Kesia Ceniceros, graduate assistant academic advisor for student support services at NAU and long-time opponent of Prop 300. “Now it is more likely students might drop out because of the huge increase.”
Ceniceros’ thoughts are not unfounded. According to a Jan. 1 article published by the Tucson Citizen, U of A spent $159,000 on enforcing Proposition 300. The tuition increase for the six students who could not provide documentation was only $70,000.
Ceniceros added that she and other Prop 300 opponents expected a large number of students to be reclassified from in-state to out-of-state.
“We knew this would happen when Prop 300 was put on the ballot but we were not sure to what extent,” Ceniceros said. “And now over 300 students are being hit with huge tuition rates they are going to struggle to afford.”
NAU officials have also noted Prop 300 as a possible cause for recent slumping in Latino retention rates. With a 10.8 percent drop in first time freshman Latino retention rates in the 2005-2006 academic year, Prop 300 was a potential target for blame, according to officials at the Multicultural Student Center.
“We are just now seeing the numbers but with the recent retention rate drop we may have already been feeling the reprecussions,” Ceniceros said.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 5:44 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.