Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Utah high school graduates should not get in-state college tuition rates if they are illegal immigrants, most respondents to a new survey said.
Seventy-one percent of the 625 registered voters who were interviewed by telephone for the statewide poll for The Salt Lake Tribune this week said Utah should "repeal the current state law that offers the discounted resident college tuition rate to the children of undocumented immigrants."
The poll was conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Respondents also supported building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border (56 percent) and opposed a path to citizenship for immigrants who are in the United States illegally (54 percent).
Ruth Bick, 63, a political independent from Ogden, said Utahns should not have to pay taxes to subsidize a college education for illegal immigrants. The state's middle class already is burdened enough with big tax bills, she said.
Layne Barnes, a West Jordan Republican, said children of illegal immigrants already get free assistance and a free public school education, so "they should not be rewarded for breaking the law."
"I have no sympathy for them," he said.
Shane Andrews, 32, a Republican and stay-at-home dad, said in-state tuition is about wanting to "make them ) better people.
"If they can't better themselves, their only alternative is to seek more public assistance," Andrews said.
The 2002 Utah law grants in-state college tuition rates to illegal immigrants who attended a state high school for at least three years and graduated. Last year, 169 students qualified for the tuition rates under the law, state numbers show.
Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, has sponsored a bill for the past three years to repeal the law, but he has had no success. He has said he will try again.
Philip Bernal, Salt Lake County Hispanic Democratic Caucus chairman, said the poll results on the tuition question "are not positive for education or Utah's future."
Bernal also said the question would have been better worded as: Should Utah residents, who have attended at least three years at a state high school and graduated, be allowed to pay in-state college tuition?
Bernal said there is a misperception that the law allows illegal immigrant students, many of whom have spent most of their education in Utah schools and cannot apply for federal financial aid, to pay less tuition.
"They're residents of Utah like everyone else," said Bernal, who had worked in higher education for 34 years. "It's not a benefit -- it's a right they have."
------
Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune, http://www.sltrib.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
