Texas orders its public universities to identify undocumented students

San Antonio (U.S.), (EFE). – Texas has requested that public universities identify undocumented students who have benefited from the reduced tuition granted to state residents, so they can be charged the full rate, as required by a court ruling earlier this month.

Wynn Rosser, commissioner of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, has asked universities to “reclassify” their students without legal status as non-residents, in a letter cited by The Texas Tribune.

“They will be charged non-resident tuition for the Fall 2025 semester,” Rosser specifies in the letter.

The order follows a federal judge’s ruling that struck down a law allowing college students in Texas to pay in-state tuition at these institutions, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice, which argued that the state was “unconstitutionally discriminating” against U.S. citizens “to benefit” foreign nationals.

It is estimated that about 73,000 students in Texas public universities will be affected—nearly one-fifth of the 408,000 with this status nationwide, according to the organization Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

The program, established in 2001 with the passage of a law known as the Texas Dream Act, allowed certain young people who are not U.S. citizens but live in Texas and graduated from high school in the state to pay the same tuition as legal residents.

In the United States, students from other states must pay much higher tuition (‘out-of-state tuition’) when attending a university in a different region, but this law gave young people without immigration status living in Texas the opportunity to access higher education at the local, more affordable rate.