Community college and illegal immigration

The debate about whether illegal immigrants should receive in-state college tuition has been a hot one, but in North Carolina there is a new twist. The counsel for NC’s community colleges has ordered all of the colleges to accept illegal immigrants, though only if they can prove they’re a high school graduate or an adult in need of skills training, whereas before it was up to each college to decide.

However, there’s no question about in-state tuition—they have to pay out of state. A full community college class load is $7,465 while the cost for the state of a full time load is $5,375.

As you might guess, the idea bends some people out of shape. They are, it seems, very upset about people who want to obtain education so badly that they’re willing to overpay, so that the state actually nets $2,090 per full time student.