ast week the 3rd District Court of Appeal unanimously held that California is violating federal law by affording in-state tuition rates to illegal alien students at state colleges and universities while denying them to U.S. citizens who do not reside in California. We applaud this decision and hope that plaintiffs will prevail when the case is returned to Yolo Superior Court for trial.

Treating illegal immigrants better than U.S. citizens is outrageous and wrong.  California taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize higher education for those who violate our immigration laws, particularly when the state budget is awash in red ink.

In 2001, the liberal State Legislature passed AB 540, which allowed in-state tuition rates for illegal alien students who attend a California high school for at least three years and graduate.  Meanwhile, students who are U.S. citizens but live out of state must pay much higher tuition rates.  UC charges out-of-state students nearly $18,000 a year more than it charges illegal alien students who graduated from California high schools.  At state colleges, out-of-state students pay $8,000 more.

The court ruled that AB 540 conflicts with federal law, specifically section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, which limits state-funded higher education benefits for illegal alien students.

After the ruling, a California state university system spokesperson lamented that, “What we are concerned about are the students who are caught in the middle of this legal dispute.” She expressed no similar concern for hard-pressed state taxpayers who are asked to absorb the costs of awarding in-state tuition rates to an estimated 20,000 illegal aliens attending California community colleges and the estimated 1,600 at UC campuses.  Nor did she offer any sympathy for out-of-state U.S. students who are U.S. citizens but are compelled to pay substantially higher tuition than immigration scofflaws.

These folks just don’t get it.