By Jeff Mills
Staff Writer
5/14/08
The open door at North Carolina's 58 community colleges closed Tuesday morning.
Is this the right policy? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog
Acting on advice from the state attorney general's office, the N.C. Community College System reversed its open-door policy that allowed illegal orundocumented immigrants to pursue college degrees.
Six months ago, the system decided to allow those immigrants with high school diplomas to work toward associate's degrees as long as they paid the out-of-state tuition rate.
The policy change affects few people.
"For us, it's three out of 13,000 curriculum students," GTCC President Donald Cameron said.
Those three will be allowed to complete their studies, Cameron said.
"According to the e-mail we received from our attorney in Raleigh, if they have already enrolled they will be allowed to finish as long as they pay out-of-state tuition."
The out-of-state tuition costs acted as a barrier to the old open-door policy, according to area community college presidents.
"It's more of a political hot potato than it is an enrollment challenge," Randolph Community College President Bob Shackleford said. "It's going to have a very minimal effect on any of us because the way the policy was before was we had to charge out-of-state tuition rates. There are very, very few undocumented
immigrants who could afford that."
Shackleford said he "was not aware of any" affected immigrants in Randolph's 2,526 curriculum students.
"The effect on us is going to be exactly zero," Alamance Community College President Martin Nadelman said. "We have not had any (illegal immigrants) who applied, so we didn't accept any."
That's zero out of "around 4,500 curriculum students," Nadelman said.
Community college tuition rates are set by the General Assembly.
In-state students pay $42 a credit hour. Out-of-state students pay $220 a credit hour.
"The cost of education is really high," Nadelman said. "If you're talking about an out-of-state student coming in ... one course is $660 plus books. So you're talking about more than $700. (Illegal immigrants) are already not eligible for federal or state aid, so they have to pay the whole thing on their own. How many
could do that?"
GTCC's Cameron agreed.
"You look at a two-year associate's degree, you'd be paying close to $15,000 in tuition and fees over a two-year period," he said. "That doesn't take into account books and materials and gas to get back and forth."
The policy does not affect students taking nondegree, continuing education courses including GED and English as a Second Language programs.
GTCC has about 27,000 students in continuing education courses. Randolph has 8,400 and Alamance 6,000. Tuition rates for those classes vary.
"I can't even tell you if we have any (illegal immigrants) in continuing education courses. It's not data we capture from our application at all because there's no tuition differential," Alamance's Nadelman said. "I don't think anyone tracks that. … Usually, those are occupational, short-term classes that
can last anywhere from one day to 600 hours. People usually take those courses to upgrade skills or for personal interests."
Nadelman does not like closing the open door.
"My personal feeling runs contrary to the policy," he said. "Personally, I think if you're permitted to go to public schools you ought to be able to continue your education past high school. If they come here when they're infants, and they go through the schools and graduate, I hate to see them not be able to go
higher and better themselves."
Contact Jeff Mills at 373-7024 or jeff.mills @news-record.com