Florida DREAMer Tuition Equality Bill Passes State House

The Orlando Sentinel reports that a Florida bill which would extend access to in-state tuition rates for public colleges and universities to some undocumented immigrants passed the first hurdle on Thursday when the state House voted 81-33 in favor. The paper writes that the legislation may face stiffer opposition in the state Senate, though if it passes there, it will likely become law: on March 12, Republican governor Rick Scott issued a statement saying he supported the legislature’s proposal.

The Associated Press writes that to be eligible for the in-state tuition rate, which is about a quarter of the out-of-state rate, undocumented students would have to attend and graduate from a Florida high school for four consecutive years. The Sentinel writes that some Democrats in the Florida House had argued that the four-year requirement -- more than the three years originally required by the bill before it was changed to improve its odds of passage in the state Senate -- was overly exclusive. Another last-minute amendment from state House Republicans exempted Dreamers from public universities’ quota of in-state students to be accepted, in an effort to ensure that noncitizens weren’t taking the place of students.

The News-Press of southwest Florida wrote last Friday that state Republican Senator Jack Latvala, who sponsored the measure, told members of the state judicial committee that the different rates for in-state and out-of-state students had originally intended to accommodate the fact that Florida families’ taxes fund the university system, adding that undocumented immigrants also pay into the system. “These parents pay the same sales taxes, the same gas taxes, and many of the other taxes that we pay who have students that qualify for in-state tuition,” he said.