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BOSTON (State House News Service) - Joan always had a plan: she would finish high school with good grades, study nursing, and then go on to work for UNICEF to help others in need.
She felt she was on the right track, mixing honors and AP classes in Andover with volunteering in her community. But while she was applying for college, Joan, who had attended Massachusetts schools since she immigrated from Tanzania in fifth grade, said she learned that she did not have permanent legal status in the United States.
That made her ineligible for financial aid and would have required her to pay tuition at an out-of-state public higher education rate, which is typically thousands or tens of thousands of dollars more per year -- a cost she found insurmountable.
"Suddenly, none of it felt like it mattered," Joan, now 23, recalled Tuesday. "My dreams of going to college and pursuing a higher education were starting to become just that: a dream. Thrust into the shadows, I began to work any odd job I could find. While I cleaned houses and I did what I could to get by, I saw the people I had grown up with get further and further ahead in life."
Joan wound up completing a semester at Northern Essex Community College this spring, and she expected not to continue nor to pursue nursing school because of the price.
Her outlook changed in the past month, when legislative budget negotiators agreed to decouple immigration status from eligibility for in-state tuition and financial aid and Gov. Maura Healey -- who dubbed the change a "no-brainer" after the policy reform was offered -- gave her support.
"Having the state alleviate some of these financial obstacles that come with higher education would mean a chance [for] a multitude of opportunities," Joan said. "For others like myself, it would mean finally applying to nursing school. Suddenly, the dream that was so impossible seems a little bit more possible."
Hundreds of Massachusetts high school graduates without legal status in the United States are now expected to attend public colleges and universities at the lower price offered to Bay Staters under a budget rider, which elected officials and higher education leaders celebrated at an event Tuesday.
Northern Essex Community College President Lane Glenn described Joan, who spoke after a string of back-patting remarks from politicians and advocates, as "the real reason that we're all here today." His school hosted the event at its Lawrence campus.
"For a long time, our reality in Massachusetts -- the country's education hub -- was that people without residency status, despite having grown up in Massachusetts and graduated from our high schools, faced a college price tag that could be tens of thousands of dollars higher than their friends and their peers," said Senate President Karen Spilka. "That was money that needed to be paid in full out of pocket, and without financial aid for students and their families, that meant prolonging the time in school and putting off life expenses in order to pursue an education and a dream."
Immigrant rights advocacy groups were joined by higher education industry leaders and several influential business organizations, who argued that the reform will bulk up the labor pipeline by allowing more students to attend public colleges and universities. Representatives from the Massachusetts Business Roundtable, Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF), Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education and others attended Tuesday's event.
MTF estimated in June that about 1,000 students without legal status graduate high schools in Massachusetts each year. Based on existing college attendance trends, somewhere between 270 and 361 of those graduates could newly attend public colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates, generating between $2.6 million and $3.5 million in new revenue, MTF projected.
"While theoretically, the shift from students paying out-of-state tuition rates to in-state tuition rates could result in decreased revenue for campuses; it is far more likely that undocumented students currently choose to forgo higher education all together due to high costs," the group wrote in a report published in June. "Expanding access to affordable higher education opportunities for undocumented students may also help to address two long-term challenges facing the Commonwealth: declining enrollment trends at public colleges and universities and a shrinking labor force."
Across the UMass system, out-of-state students slightly outnumbered in-state students last year. The five campuses in 2022 collectively enrolled 9,406 students who called Massachusetts home, compared to 10,026 who hail from other states or countries, according to an annual report.
Financial aid and the lower-cost in-state rates became available to students immediately for the fall semester.
To qualify, a student without legal status must have attended a Massachusetts high school for at least three years and earned either a diploma or GED. They also must submit an affidavit indicating they applied for citizenship or legal permanent residence or plan to do so once eligible.
The House rejected a similar reform in 2006, with about two dozen current lawmakers voting against it at the time, including now-Speaker Ron Mariano.
Salem State University President John Keenan, a former state representative, on Tuesday recalled serving his first term in the House when the standalone bill came to the floor.
Keenan supported it at the time, he said, but it became clear that "the bill was gonna go down" amid insufficient support among Democrats.
"It's not easy to get stuff done in a budget, policy things done in a budget. I was there for 10 years. I tried. It's not that easy," Keenan said. "But it made eminent sense to do it this time for all the right reasons."
The latest measure -- a version of which is already in place in more than 20 other states -- sailed through to Healey's desk as part of the annual budget despite opposition from some Republicans, who argued the change would encourage more immigration without legal permission to Massachusetts.
"I would challenge anybody who has questions, concerns, wants to talk about immigration right now in this country, in this moment, to listen to Joan and her story," Gov. Maura Healey said. "The reason I get emotional about it is because I'm very invested in seeing their success. I know what that means for the success for themselves as individuals, for their families. I also know what it means for the success of this state and this country. And unfortunately, from time to time, we see voices emerge that look to stoke fears and bigotry all in the furtherance of some perceived political gain."
She added that the legislation "is about giving opportunity to people."
"It's about what this country has purported to be about from its very beginning, at least as enshrined in law, not always implemented or acted on. That is work that continues every day," Healey said.
The in-state reform was not proposed by the governor this year and House Democrats did not include it in their budget bill. The measure gained momentum after Senate Democrats included the change in their fiscal 2024 budget, and a panel of three House budget negotiators agreed to include the reform in the final budget that Healey signed earlier this month.
Written By Chris Lisinski/SHNS
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