After Lone Star Success, DOJ Sues Kentucky, Minnesota Over In-State Tuition for Illegal Aliens
2nd July 2025
Attention, all parents and college students worried about the ever-rising cost of college tuition. The Department of Justice has finally—after three decades—started enforcing the federal law that prohibits states from offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens unless they also offer in-state tuition to everyone else—including all citizen students from out of state.
The law it’s enforcing has existed since 1996, when Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
Buried inside that huge law was Section 505, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1623, which prohibits state colleges and universities from providing in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens “on the basis of residence within the State” unless the same in-state rates are offered to all citizens of the United States.