Factors Influencing In-State Resident Tuition Policy for Undocumented Youth in the USA

In the USA, the debate over the in-state resident tuition policy for undocumented youth touches on concerns with fairness, lawfulness, and membership in political communities that immigration and higher education policies raise more generally. Drawing upon policy design scholarship and using interpretative analysis, this policy matters paper examines demographic, political, and cultural factors that influence in-state tuition policy for undocumented youth among and within states. I argue that subsidizing higher education for undocumented youth immigrants responds to values in areas with more predominant moralistic political cultures as well as on social construction of deservingness based on American values acculturation. The policy paper suggests how the differences in state-resident policy designs—for undocumented immigrants—result in various inclusion standards and levels of civic membership among states and localities. As a result, the social mobility and path to legality depend largely on undocumented youth’s access to higher education, tied to the benefit of paying in-state resident tuition fees.