BILL ANALYSIS Ó Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Kevin de León, Chair SB 141 (Correa) - Postsecondary Education: Children of Deported Parents Amended: May 8, 2013 Policy Vote: Education 8-0 Urgency: No Mandate: Yes Hearing Date: May 20, 2013 Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. Bill Summary: SB 141 requires that the California Community Colleges (CCC) and the California State University (CSU), and requests that the University of California (UC), exempt a United States citizen who resides in a foreign country, and is in his/her first year as a matriculated student, from nonresident tuition if the student demonstrates financial need, has a parent or guardian who was deported or voluntarily departed from the US, lived in California immediately before moving abroad and attended a secondary school in California for at least three years. Fiscal Impact: The number of students who would be eligible for in-state tuition under this bill is unknown. CCC: Potentially substantial fee revenue loss. CSU and UC: Potentially substantial fee revenue loss. Background: Existing law, (established by AB 540, Ch.814/2001) exempts specified California nonresidents from paying nonresident tuition at UC, CSU and the CCCs if they: 1) Attended a California high school for three or more years; 2) Graduated from a California high school or attained an equivalent degree; 3) Registered or attended an accredited California higher education institution not before the 2001-02 academic year; and, 4) Filed an affidavit, if an alien without lawful immigration status, stating that the student has filed an application to legalize their immigration status or will file such an application as soon as they are eligible to so do. (Education Code § 68130) Existing law authorizes a community college district (CCD) to admit nonresident students and requires that these students be SB 141 (Correa) Page 1 charged a nonresident tuition fee, with certain specified exemptions. Among others, a CCD is authorized to exempt from all or parts of the nonresident tuition fee any nonresident who is both a citizen and resident of a foreign country, if the nonresident demonstrates a financial need for the exemption, up to a maximum of 10% of the nonresident foreign students attending the CCD, and authorizes these exemptions to be made on an individual basis. (EC § 76140(a) (2)) Proposed Law: SB 141 expands existing exemptions from non-resident tuition, by requiring that the CCC and the CSU exempt from nonresident tuition a student who is a US citizen who resides in a foreign country if the student meets all the following requirements: a) Demonstrates a financial need for the exemption; b) Has a parent or guardian who has been deported or was permitted to depart voluntarily from the US in accordance with specified federal immigration laws, and requires the student to provide specified documents as evidence; c) Moved abroad as a result of the deportation; d) Lived in California immediately before moving abroad and requires the student to provide information and evidence of such; e) Attended a secondary school in California for at least three years; and, f) Is in his/her first academic year as a matriculated student at the CSU or CCC. This bill requests that the UC implement this exemption. Staff Comments: This bill exempts a likely small subset of US citizens living abroad from having to pay nonresident tuition to attend a CCC or CSU, or UC, if UC complies with its request. The exemption would only apply to a student who meets all of the aforementioned conditions including, most notably, that the student completed at least 3 years of high school in California and provides evidence that he or she moved abroad as a result of a parent deportation or voluntary departure in accordance with specified immigration laws. The exemption provided by this bill is unlikely to apply to a large number of students, but it is not known how many such students attend (or would attend, under this nonresident tuition exemption) the CCC, CSU, or UC. Each eligible student enrolling as an undergraduate in the CSU would be eligible to pay $5,472 per year, instead of $5,472 + $372 per unit (which would be an additional $11,160 per year for two 15-unit course load semesters). Each eligible student enrolling as an undergraduate in the UC would be eligible to pay SB 141 (Correa) Page 2 $12,192 instead of $35,070, a difference of $22,878. Each eligible CCC student would pay pay $46 per unit, rather than $244 per unit. For each full time student (enrolled in 30 units per academic year), the CCC would lose $5,920 in fee revenue. If even a small number of students benefit from this bill, the resulting fee revenue loss would meet the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.