–> UPDATE, July 29, 2024: At least one public university apparently excludes illegal aliens from Dual Enrollment – HOORAY! Info here.
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High school students attend Georgia’s public colleges while paying no tuition – residency, citizenship verification not required.
- Pro-enforcement Georgians of all descriptions should be asking Gov. Kemp and lawmakers why we are paying for college classes for illegal aliens in an effort to “expand the workforce” when “the undocumented” are not generally eligible to be employed.
“While conservative Republicans wage an annual battle under the Gold Dome to stop other Republicans from changing state law so as to award in-state college tuition to Georgia’s “undocumented” foreign high school grads, it looks like we are paying for zero-cost college tuition as well as fees and books for the illegal aliens who haven’t yet graduated our tax-funded high schools.” So went part of a letter to the editor published in the Brunswick News last week from retired Border Patrol agent and INS agent, Robert Trent.
Trent, a St. Mary’s resident and active member of the Camden County Republican Party, was writing about Georgia’s Dual Enrollment program which, for taxpayers who are funding the program but who may not be aware, is best described by the Georgia Student Finance Commission: “Georgia’s Dual Enrollment Program provides students enrolled at an eligible public or private high school or home study program in Georgia the opportunity to earn high school and college credit at a participating eligible postsecondary institution in Georgia.”
Now capped at thirty semester hours, prior to changes pushed by Kemp in 2020 designed to lower costs, some students were reportedly taking 60 to 70 hours — which was making the program financially unsustainable.
About 45,000 Georgia students participated in dual enrollment last year according to reliable news reports.
- Related reading: Dual Enrollment as explained by the Georgia Dept. of Education
This writer has been asking a variety of politicos since 2020 to point to a provision in the law or Georgia Student Finance Commission eligibility policy governing the DE program that excludes illegal aliens. A result was that the then-pending DE House bill saw a surprise, unscheduled vote.
Earlier this month I sent an open records request to the Georgia Student Finance Commission asking for a copy of any record or document that illustrated an exclusion for illegal aliens in the DE program or a verification system to check immigration status. I received a reply essentially telling me to see the laws and eligibility guidelines for myself.
I also sent a request for comment for this column to the media department at GSFC. There was no response.
We direct readers to the GSFC Dual Enrollment FAQ page, #7: “Is there a residency requirement to participate in Dual Enrollment? A: “There is no residence or citizenship requirement to participate in the Dual Enrollment program.” An online GSFC tutorial is careful to explain that a Social Security Number is not required for DE participation.
The DE program was the object of legislation in 2020 (HB 444) when it was renamed and in 2023 with SB 86 and a sixteen-member Joint Study Committee created in SR 175 – which was sponsored by twenty-two of the thirty-three Senate Republicans. At the outset of the latter endeavor, Co-Chair Rep. Matt Dubnik (R-Gainesville) explained that “We’re not trying to fix something that’s broken, We’re simply trying to take a good program and make it even better.” Georgia taxpayers may disagree when educated on the DE program. Sen. Matt Brass (R-Newnan) was lead sponsor of the above Dual Enrollment Senate legislation in 2023.
None of this legislation dealt with the fact that according to federal estimates only six states host more illegal aliens than Georgia. Or that the far-left Georgia Budget and Policy Institute says about 3000 illegals graduate from Georgia high schools each year (Update, June 1, 2024 – The Guardian says it’s 4000) . Using that number, it is logical to assume that the combined number of the now DE eligible 11th and 12 grade students in the U.S. illegally is around 6000 – 8000 in any one school year. Ensuring that they are not draining the state education budget by benefitting from the tax-funded, discretionary DE free-college program seems like a no-brainer.
For more information on the current state of the Dual Enrollment program see the Oct. 13, 2023 James Magazine Online report.
Pro-enforcement Georgians of all descriptions should be asking Gov. Kemp and lawmakers why we are apparently paying for college classes for illegal aliens in an effort to “expand the workforce” when the “undocumented” are not generally eligible to be employed.
Democrat mayors and governors around the nation are openly wailing against the cost of caring for the literal millions of illegals being waived into the remains of the republic and dispersed into the nation’s interior by the Biden administration. Georgia is rewarding them. Including Kemp, Republican leaders in the Peach State need to explain the apparent absence of tools to insure only work-eligible high school students can access the Dual Enrollment benefits. It’s liable to be “an issue” in the 2024 elections.
A version of this essay ran on the subscription website James Magazine Online on Dec. 29, 2023, in the Glynn County (GA) The Islander newspaper on January 8, 2024 and in the (Carroll Co. GA) Star News in the Sept 14, 2024 edition.
D.A. King is president of the Dustin Inman Society and proprietor of ImmigrationPolitcsGA.com
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