Face the State

Face The State Staff Report

While Republican leaders in Colorado have voiced vocal opposition in recent years to providing in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, a handful of leading conservatives are now coming out in support of a legislative effort proposed by Democrats to allow Coloradans in-state tuition at the state's public colleges and universities regardless of immigration status.

"Republican businessmen understand the need for immigration reform," said Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, who is sponsoring Senate Bill 170, which would specifically require that a person, "regardless of immigration status, who attends a Colorado high school for at least three years and enrolls in a Colorado institute of higher education within five years after either graduating from a Colorado high school or earning a GED shall be charged the same tuition rate and shall be eligible for tuition assistance under the same criteria as a person who establishes domicile in Colorado."

Alex Cranberg, chairman of Aspect Energy, a Republican, and an outspoken education reform advocate, supports the bill.

In a Face The State radio interview, Cranberg warned against protectionism in light of recent economic woes. "One of the warnings that clearly is being expressed by economists about what could make the recession worse is if people resort to protectionism and nationalist tendencies as opposed to looking at the benefits gained by free trade and the free movement of people," he said.

Over the last several years, Cranberg has been a strong supporter of Colorado’s school choice movement. In 2004, he pledged to send 650 students from Horace Mann Middle School, a Denver public school home to mostly low-income students, to Metropolitan State College for four years. At the time, Cranberg served as treasurer of the school's board of trustees. Appointed by Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican, in 2002, a Democrat-controlled state Senate declined Cranberg's reappointment to the board in 2006.

Despite the slight by Democrats, Cranberg remains committed to his support of the legislation, arguing that on the state's campuses, including Metro, many costs are fixed, meaning that "to add an extra student works out to be a [cost] equal or less than the $2,000 or so that an in-state student would actually pay in cash out of his pocket...you have extra students there that are putting extra cash into a higher ed system [that will lead to] employing professors and lecturers that otherwise wouldn't be employed."

Under current law, illegal immigrants pay out-of-state tuition rates, which for many, is prohibitive expensive. Currently, in-state Metro students pay $1,620 for a full 15-credit course load, while out-of-state students pay $5,974. At the University of Colorado's College of Arts & Sciences, in-state students pay $7,278 for tuition and fees, while out-of-state students pay $26,756 each year.

Joining Cranberg in his support is fellow Republican Dick Montfort, vice chairman of the Colorado Rockies and chairman of the University of Northern Colorado Board of Trustees. “Opening educational opportunity for more of our high school graduates means our state will have a more developed work force down the road, and will be able to attract more high-growth industries," Montfort told the Greeley Tribune earlier this month.

Leading the pack in opposition has been state Sen. Dave Schultheis, a Colorado Springs Republican. "If you were to ask the citizens of Colorado what they feel, they would be adamantly opposed to it, probably 85 percent," he told the Rocky Mountain News. "We're supposed to be representing the people of Colorado. What are we doing running bills they don't want?"

Schultheis was unavailable for comment Thursday.

Cranberg described the difference of opinion within Republican circles as "a prohibition conundrum," saying the debate was between whether "you change the laws to make behavior that maybe shouldn't be illegal, legal or do you enforce laws that are on teh books that may not be particularly desirable. Some conservatives simply want to eliminate the illegality by the eliminating the people and enforcing existing laws or tougher laws. Other conservatives feel like the laws are excessively restrictive and prevent the type of behavior that America should encourage, namely immigration, economic opportunity, freedom, and hard work, and all of the values we stand for."

The bill is scheduled for its first hearing next Thursday in the Senate Education Committee.