Held Back
Undocumented students are facing a backlash across the country.
Anna Oakes reports on moves in Red States that limit access to higher education for undocumented students.
- MS
Amid the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown, some states – largely Republican-led – are ramping up their efforts to limit undocumented students’ access to higher education. Undocumented students are an integral part of universities across the country – around 510,000 students in higher education are undocumented, or about 2.4% of all enrolled students. Some of these state efforts come in response to federal pressure, including a series of Department of Justice (DOJ) lawsuits; but others have preceded federal involvement.
The restrictions are wide in their scope, targeting everything from in-state tuition policies to college preparatory classes for undocumented high schoolers to complete bans on attendance. Other state-level legislative attacks that target immigrants more broadly sweep up undocumented students, as well – like bans on drivers’ licenses, or professional licensing.
Across the country, advocates say, the onslaught of legal restrictions on higher education, together with indiscriminate and violent immigration enforcement, has resulted in a climate of repression and fear for hundreds of thousands of students who were vulnerable even before Trump came into office.
Cuts to in-state tuition
One of the most pervasive, and growing, restrictions against undocumented students has been state-level bans against in-state tuition options for these students. The bans often reverse laws that have been in place for decades, through which states have stepped up to offer alternatives to federal student aid that generally is not available to undocumented students. For undocumented students, almost 75% of whom do not have DACA status and thus can’t work legally to help fund their education, in-state tuition like this is a lifeline, albeit a shaky one.
In February 2025, lawmakers in Florida – which as of 2023 had 49,356 undocumented students in higher education, the third-highest number in the country – repealed a decades-old tuition equity law that enabled undocumented students to receive in-state tuition.
In May 2025, the Trump administration issued an executive order threatening to retaliate against governments that offer in-state tuition for undocumented students. At the time, legal experts questioned the legality of the order. But some states, facing federal pressure, soon complied.
“It really was this unprecedented attempt to try to reinterpret federal law in a way that undermines state authority over higher ed,” said Monica Andrade, Director of State Policy and Legal Strategy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.
Hit with federal lawsuits, Texas and Oklahoma soon followed. With 73,379 undocumented students in higher education as of 2023, Texas has the second-highest number in the country; Oklahoma’s numbers are not readily available
A Texas judge invalidated the state’s 24-year-old law – the first in the country, passed by Republican Governor Rick Perry in 2001 – guaranteeing in-state tuition for undocumented students. In Oklahoma, following a similar court ruling in which a judge struck down the law allowing for in-state tuition, lawmakers are pushing forward a bill to codify the ban.
The Justice Department has filed complaints against other states, including Kentucky, Virginia, Illinois, California, and Minnesota.
But other states, Andrade said, are engaging in “preemptive compliance” to avoid dealing with the DOJ.
In March 2026, for example, Kansas lawmakers voted to repeal a 22-year-old bipartisan law that provided in-state tuition for undocumented students. Undocumented students at Kansas State University will have to pay $28,500 to attend, almost triple what in-state students pay. But days later, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly vetoed the bill, saying “Kansas needs these young people to be educated and trained so they can enter our workforce and contribute to our state’s economy.” Lawmakers are planning to attempt to override the veto this month.
“Much of the reasoning behind this move appears to be based on the lawsuits filed by the Department of Justice against other states that resulted in settlement agreements,” Andrade said. “The mere threat of litigation should not, on its own, be enough to upend lives.”
In January, the Presidents’ Alliance published a “playbook” for states on how to respond to federal complaints regarding in-state tuition.
Some states, from Florida to Wisconsin, have banned in-state tuition for all undocumented students – including DACA recipients. Others, like Texas, Ohio, and Maine, permit in-state tuition for DACA recipients while not for other undocumented students.
Adding to the difficulties, undocumented students are already excluded from federal loan programs like FAFSA, said Vanessa Delgado, an Assistant Professor of sociology at Washington State University who studies the impacts of immigration laws. Undocumented students can apply for private loans, but many banks don’t serve undocumented people – and the ones that do “usually have extremely high interest rates.”
For students who are caught in the middle of these legal restrictions – if they’re already enrolled under in-state tuition laws that are abruptly appealed – they are stuck in a kind of limbo. “It’s pushing a lot of students to have to either pause or drop out completely because you can’t even work part time to pay that amount of money,” Delgado said.
When undocumented students are allowed to access in-state tuition, they gain easier access to higher education – meaning, in the long-term, they are likelier to work in higher-earning jobs that contribute more money to the state economy. “Tuition equity policies strengthen the social and economic fabric by expanding access to higher education, supporting workforce development, and increasing long-term economic growth,” Andrade said.
Bans on attending
Some states have proposed, or instituted, more drastic measures.
In January, Florida lawmakers introduced a new bill, SB 1052, that would prevent undocumented students from attending college or university. While the bill died in committee in March, advocates expressed concerns at the time over Florida’s growing anti-immigrant legislation, from the in-state tuition bans passed in 2025 to another bill, HB 1279, that would impose caps on international student enrollment at Florida universities.
But three states – Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina – have been operating with bans on undocumented students for many years, preceding the Trump administration.
In 2008, South Carolina became the first state to ban undocumented students from attending public colleges and universities. The state still has some of the country’s most restrictive higher education policies, including a ban on in-state tuition, even for DACA students (who are allowed to enroll, unlike other undocumented students), and a ban on professional licenses for undocumented students, even DACA students who have completed degree programs. That means professions that require licenses – engineering, nursing, real estate, contractors, accounting, and more – are closed off to undocumented students.
In 2011, Georgia passed a similar law to South Carolina’s, banning undocumented students from attending its top public universities. Some schools continued to allow DACA students to attend, with restrictions on in-state tuition.
The state has over 17,000 undocumented students in higher education, according to the Higher Ed Immigration portal.
The impacts of these bans – even when they allow for some exceptions, like DACA recipients – are widespread. “Some undocumented young people chose not to go to college,” said Edelina Burciaga, an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Denver who has studied the impacts of state policy on undocumented students. “Some chose to say, ‘well, I’ll work for a couple of years and I’ll go to community college for a year and I’ll pay out-of-state at a technical or community college.’” Others found institutions that would offer them scholarships – “but most of these institutions are outside of the state of Georgia.”
Some alternatives to traditional university pathways have emerged in the face of these restrictions, Burciaga said – giving the example of Freedom University, an organization that provides a variety of classes, including college prep, to undocumented students in Atlanta.
Since 2011, Alabama has barred most undocumented students from attending higher education, though DACA recipients can generally still enroll at out-of-state prices. Lawmakers have attempted to implement broader bans, with limited success. In 2024, a bill that proposed to open enrollment restrictions to more undocumented students, as long as they fulfilled certain requirements, died in the state Senate.
Some progressive states are meeting the moment
It’s not just in conservative states where undocumented students have felt increased pressure, though.
The City University of New York (CUNY) has around 250,000 students, roughly one-third of whom are immigrants; last year, the school said around 4,000 of its students were undocumented.
This year, CUNY launched an Immigration Assistance Project, a legal resource that provides consultations and rapid response support, “in response to federal policy changes impacting students here legally, but who lost status and are now undocumented,” a spokesperson told CollegeWatch.
During the first Trump administration, CUNY opened “immigrant student success centers” to provide additional resources and support for its students.
The centers operate out of just four of CUNY’s twenty five campuses across the city, and staff are overwhelmed with cases, said Sofya Aptekar, an Associate Professor of Urban Studies at CUNY who researches the experiences of undocumented students.
“At some of these enormous campuses, there is the staff that is already doing the job of three, four people because of how underfunded CUNY is,” Aptekar said. “But that support is super needed.”
Undocumented students in New York State are eligible for tuition aid under the New York State DREAM Act, but at CUNY, some of the aid requires that they identify themselves as undocumented, sometimes in administrative spaces where conversations – and disclosures – are easily overheard. As of 2023, New York State had around 31,452 undocumented students in higher education.
“Most undocumented students of CUNY do not disclose their status on campus,” Aptekar said. “Sometimes they don’t disclose their status anywhere outside their family.”
The aggressive surveillance tactics of the current administration make disclosure requirements especially risky, said Aptekar. “It’s a different moment right now, in terms of people taking risks and being visible as undocumented.”
California, meanwhile, provides far more dedicated resources specifically to undocumented students. It’s “the shining example,” said Aptekar.
California has more undocumented students in higher education than any other state than any other state in the country, with around 103,000 students currently enrolled. Having dedicated student centers for undocumented students, like those at UCLA or Berkeley, allows for students to access tailored resources like free legal support, professional development, and mental health counseling.
“It’s through these centers where people can get various kinds of support, but also the community and the privacy that is really crucial, we found, in your experience as an undocumented person in college,” Aptekar said.
Even with those extra levels of support, Burciaga said, undocumented students face significant challenges that school resources cannot - or do not - fully mitigate.
“All of these experiences that we think are important for college students to have – research assistantships, internships, all of those – became more complicated because of legal status and institutional and systemic failures to think through what an undocumented student or DACA recipient would need to participate fully in college life.”
Late last year, the DOJ sued California – like it has against many other states – for its in-state tuition policies for undocumented students. California has vowed to push back; governor Gavin Newsom called the lawsuits “meritless” and “politically motivated.”
Other states that have received DOJ complaints, like Minnesota, have also resisted federal efforts. In March, a judge dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit against Minnesota that attempted to halt the state’s in-state tuition and scholarships for undocumented students, after Minnesota challenged the lawsuit in court.
And in Illinois, which has around 27,672 undocumented students in higher education and guarantees in-state tuition under a 2003 law, Governor Pritzker signed SB 0461 in late 2024 to loosen the requirements for in-state tuition. The DOJ sued to block in-state tuition in September; the case is ongoing.
Impacts
All of these restrictions together can make higher education impossibly difficult or inaccessible for undocumented students. As federal enforcement continues, some students have the added weight of worrying about their parents or family members – or financially supporting family members who may be too afraid to work.
In her research, Burciaga has spoken with undocumented people across the country. Many of these young people, she said, “talked about the sacrifices their parents made in migrating to this country and wanting to honor those sacrifices by going to college.”
“They came for a better life and that means going to college,” she continued. “And to have that cut off so early in the educational trajectory, at that entry point to college, has a significant emotional impact for these young people.”
- Anna Oakes