Reyna Montoya is a DACA recipient and the CEO and founder of Aliento, a nonprofit that helps mixed immigration status families work through trauma. She said the new state bill would give more Arizona graduates a chance to stay in the state for college.
Alisa Reznick / AZPM
The Arizona House will consider a bill that could pave the way to give all Arizona high school graduates access to in-state tuition, regardless of immigration status.
Roughly 2000 people graduating from Arizona high schools each year are undocumented, according to a poll by the Migration Policy Institute in 2019. In a few years, Maria Dominguez, a high school sophomore in Phoenix, will most likely be one of them.
AZPM Staff
This week saw new and proposed changes in Arizona’s higher education system, with tuition in the spotlight.
For undocumented students in Arizona, some tuition relief may be on the way. A proposed Arizona Senate bill would grant in-state tuition to all students who graduated from an Arizona high school and lived in the state for at least two years. That includes undocumented students. The proposed bill passed the Arizona Senate Education Committee and will be considered by the state Senate.
A decade-old state proposition made it so undocumented students cannot access in-state tuition rates or financial aid. Currently, Arizona students in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program pay 150% of in-state tuition.