TODAY'S GLOBE - Education Parity Op-Ed

[Patricia Deoliveira]

TODAY'S GLOBE: OP-ED on the Education Opportunity/Parity Act-

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The Boston Globe

STEVE CROSBY

A passport to higher ed

By Steve Crosby | June 1, 2007

THIS MORNING, 1,800 undergraduates at the University of Massachusetts at

Boston will receive their diplomas and join the ranks of the 85 percent of

UMass grads who stay in the state, providing much of the critical workforce

for the Commonwealth's future.

Thousands more students will watch with pride and excitement, awaiting their

turns to graduate. Elena Alvaro, a high school honor roll student and class

marshal, will not be among them.

Why? Because she is the daughter of undocumented immigrants, Alvaro (not her

real name) must pay the out-of-state tuition rate, which is twice the

in-state rate. It's a difference of $8,044, and her parents cannot afford

it.

How does depriving Alvaro or any of the other approximately 400 students

each year in a similar position benefit the state?

It deprives us of educated workers, tax revenue, and engaged citizens.

Worse, it perpetuates a tradition of intolerance and misperception that has

crippled our character and defeated our self-interest repeatedly in our

Commonwealth's history.

Consider the facts. People might fear the economic impact of subsidizing

these students' education. Not so: In a May 2007 report, the Federal Reserve

Bank of Boston concluded: "the evidence suggests that the economic impact of

allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition would be positive."

People might also fear that these students will deprive others of places.

Not so. The Board of Higher Education has pledged that no such trade-offs

will occur, and many campuses want more students. UMass-Boston alone is

looking to increase its student body by 3,000.

So what is the problem? The politics of fear and negativity, mostly. Some

politicians and commentators, including CNN's Lou Dobbs, have used this

issue to motivate financially insecure working families to fear for their

future, to set class against class, to win elections or ratings by

exploiting racial and economic stereotypes and anxieties. It is a strategy

that succeeds only in the absence of honest information.

In a McCormack Graduate School statewide survey last fall, we asked this

question: There are several hundred undocumented immigrant students in

Massachusetts who have lived here for at least three years and have

graduated from a high school in Massachusetts. Would you favor or oppose

charging them the same in-state tuition at public colleges and universities

that other high school graduates pay? An overwhelming 72 percent were in

favor.

People of good faith may also say, "We should not reward people for illegal

behavior," a point that seems fair. But these children did not make the

decision to immigrate. They came with their parents. And their parents came

only because there are jobs here which, for the most part, we willingly

offer them.

Having these children become educated citizens is in our economic

self-interest. If it were not for immigrants, Massachusetts would be losing

population, and the federal dollars, state tax revenue, jobs, and

congressional seats that go with it.

As has so often been true in our history, immigrants are our future, and the

better educated they are, the better it is for them and for us.

Today's political leadership in Massachusetts is made up of women,

African-Americans, Italians and Irish -- Salvatore DiMasi, Thomas Menino,

Deval Patrick, Timothy Murray, Martha Coakley. All of these groups were once

the objects of discrimination; all had to force changes in the law to be

provided equal opportunity; all have become central to our economic and

social prosperity. So too will that be true of today's immigrants.

There is legislation in the House of Representatives to extend in-state

tuition rates to this category of immigrant high school graduates. It should

be passed, and passed quickly, in time for the next school year.

Diversity and inclusion have been values that have waxed and waned in our

history. But when they are in the ascendancy, we are socially and

economically the better for it. Elena Alvaro's future cannot wait. Nor

should we.

Steve Crosby is dean of the McCormack Graduate School at UMass-Boston.