Help students get UH resident rates

Congress has stumbled in its attempt to give permanent resident status to undocumented students brought into the United States illegally by their parents, but 13 states have stepped forward to provide them affordable college opportunities. Hawaii should join not only those states in allowing them residency tuition rates, but three of them in also providing government tuition aid.

Federal legislation was approved by the U.S. House in December 2010, but that came nearly three years after the bill fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster. The GOP’s remaining presidential candidates are opposed to it, so its chance of enactment in the near future appears gloomy.

The stalled Dream Act, named as an acronym for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, would provide college opportunities to certain undocumented immigrants of good moral character and with high school diplomas or U.S. military service. Meanwhile, states have gone their own way to open opportunities for young unauthorized immigrants to pursue college degrees or serve in the military.

The Hawaii version was carved from an unrelated bill in the Senate after a House version failed to make it out of committee in the current legislative session. It would allow students lacking lawful immigration status to be granted eligibility for resident tuition if they graduated from a Hawaii high school after at least three years’ attendance, as long as they provide an affidavit that they are seeking legal status or plan to do so soon. The bill faced no opposing testimony in the Senate Education Committee — although lone Republican Sen. Sam Slom voted against it — and it now goes to the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

At the University of Hawaii-Manoa, nonresident tuition for full-time students is $11,616 per semester, compared to only $4,200 for residents. Although the UH is aware of only five present students who might qualify, UH officials say as many as 1,300 students could take statewide advantage of the legislation. For many, the availability of state financial aid could be critical, although Monisha Das Gupta, a UH ethnic studies professor, says an expectation of 200 would be "very optimistic."

But the important purpose of this legislation goes beyond mere numbers-crunching of enrollments and tuitions. The impetus is to realize the potential of human promise, to give youths who have already shown diligence in high school to continue higher education across the UH college spectrum — a path that may be now blocked for financial reasons. Over the long term, it benefits a society to open paths for initiative that allow better-educated, taxpaying adults to contribute to the community pool, rather than the alternative, and that is to have residents draining it.

"The Dream Act is not a form of amnesty," Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented Philippines-born journalist who helped The Washington Post win a Pulitzer Prize, told an audience in Miami last week. "It’s simply a common-sense solution to a complex problem … they (the young immigrants) want to pay taxes. They want to contribute. In a complex economy, don’t we want more tax-paying Americans?"

About 40,000 undocumented immigrants are believed to reside in Hawaii, and about 12 percent of them are believed to be 18 to 24 years old. The Hawaii version of the Dream Act would be an important vehicle for those and future young people who were born abroad to play a significant role in the state’s higher education and economy.