DOJ Sues Three States for Giving Undocumented Students a Tuition Deal Your Kids Can’t Get

By Tammy-Jo Pritchett · August 10, 2026

Opinion

Let me tell you something. I have four kids. One is in college right now, paying out-of-state tuition because we live on the wrong side of an imaginary line. Another is filling out the FAFSA for the third time, getting told we make too much money (we don’t) and not enough money (we do) in the same breath. So when I read that the Department of Justice just sued Maryland, Colorado, and California for handing undocumented immigrants a tuition discount that my children will never, ever qualify for, I had to sit down with my coffee and process it.

Here’s what happened. The DOJ filed its 13th, yes thirteenth, lawsuit last Thursday challenging state laws that let people who are not lawfully present in this country pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges. The federal law on this has been clear since 1998: you cannot give someone a postsecondary education benefit based on state residency unless every U.S. citizen from every state can get that same benefit. Plain English. You can read it yourself. I did.

But these states just went ahead and did it anyway.

California has roughly 103,000 undocumented residents enrolled in higher education. At UC Berkeley, an in-state student pays $17,478 a year. An out-of-state American citizen pays $55,080. So my kid from Pennsylvania, who was born here, whose father served in the military, whose mother pays taxes every April, would owe more than triple what someone who crossed the border without documents owes. And Gavin Newsom, who is named as a defendant in this lawsuit, thinks that’s fine. He thinks that’s justice. I have questions for the manager.

In Maryland, the DOJ found that between summer 2024 and spring 2025 alone, undocumented students saved nearly $9 million in tuition costs at community colleges and public universities. Nine million dollars. In one state. In one year. Maryland has been doing this since 2011, when they passed their DREAM Act, and then kept expanding it, lowering the bar, making it easier. Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said the DOJ is trying to “take away an opportunity from Maryland students who grew up here.” Sir, my daughter grew up in America. Does she get a discount?

Colorado’s version is called the ASSET Act, approved by voters in 2013. Senator John Hickenlooper called the lawsuit “reigniting yesterday’s culture wars.” No, Senator. It’s not a culture war. It’s a math problem. You are taking money from one group of people and giving it to another group of people who are not supposed to be here, and you are calling the people who notice the math “culture warriors.” That is not a culture war. That is a receipt.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi said California is showing “flagrant disregard for federal law.” She’s right. Several courts across the country have already struck down similar state tuition laws as unconstitutional. The California Supreme Court upheld their law back in 2010, ruling that the tuition break was based on high school attendance, not residency. The DOJ’s response this week: high school attendance is just a proxy for residency. Which, of course it is. Who goes to a California high school for three years and doesn’t live in California? I did my own research on that one. The answer is nobody.

Here is what I keep coming back to. I am not a lawyer. I am not a politician. I am a mother who fills out tuition paperwork and reads the fine print because nobody else is going to do it for me. And the fine print says my kids pay full price. The fine print says my kids compete for scholarships that are means-tested and tax-credit-dependent and conditional on a dozen things. The fine print says my kids’ spot in a classroom might go to someone whose presence in this country is, by definition, unlawful. And when I say something about it, I’m told I’m heartless.

I’m not heartless. I’m tired. And I’m not the only one who can do math.

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