More Money, More Problems: The Impact of Tuition Increases on Undocumented Student Achievement

There are an estimated 11.3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, 60 percent of whom live in one of six states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois. In New York City alone, there are around 535,000 undocumented immigrants. Because of its reputation as an immigrant gateway state, New York has a history of granting undocumented students in-state tuition to its city colleges (the City University of New York (CUNY) schools) if they can prove that they received their high school diploma or GED from a school in New York. After September 11, 2001, the in-state tuition program for undocumented students was temporarily eliminated, leaving students with a 113 percent increase in college tuition, until the policy change was overturned. In their recent paper, The Effect of Price Shocks on Undocumented Students’ College Attainment and Completion, Dylan Conger and Lesley Turner examine the impact of this policy change.

To analyze the impact of the price increase, Conger and Turner use a differences-in-differences analysis to look at changes in degree completion, credit accumulation, and reenrollment between the semesters preceding and following the tuition shock of 2001. They calculate the impact of the policy by comparing metrics across these three dimensions after the tuition increase to what the outcomes would have been without the tuition increase (the counterfactual). This counterfactual is determined by looking at the trends, first before the policy change and then at the point of the policy implementation, and calculating what the outcomes would have been had the trend continued at a rate similar to a comparison group, which in this case is documented noncitizens. Documented noncitizens were chosen as the comparison group because, before the change, the two groups had similar trends on these measures, and the documented noncitizens would not have faced the same tuition increase.

The study finds that there was a 22 percent decrease in the number of undocumented students who completed their degrees following the tuition increase. They also find that undocumented students earned nine percent fewer credits during the semester with the tuition increase, and that this persisted even after the tuition price dropped. Although there are no differences in outcomes based on gender, undocumented Hispanic immigrants faced more substantial negative outcomes than undocumented, non-Hispanic immigrants.

The researchers also find an eight percent reduction in reenrollment of undocumented students after the tuition increase. However, for students who had been attending a CUNY college for at least one year before the tuition increase, this difference could be attributed to students who would have dropped out in later semesters and were simply induced to drop out sooner by the policy change. Students who had been attending for only one semester before the tuition increase were more likely to drop out. The researchers hypothesize that students who had not been in college for at least one year before the tuition increase were unable to determine the potential return on investment for remaining in college during this time of uncertainty, and therefore left. In contrast, those who had been in school longer knew the value of graduating and were more likely to stay, even with the tuition increase.

Past research has shown that tuition subsidies for undocumented students help them gain access to college, and this research builds on that by showing that subsidies also make it more likely that these students will complete college. Degree completion for these students could allow them to become better consumers and participants of informal civic and political processes, as well as improve outcomes for the citizen children of these noncitizen graduates. The research, in effect, also shows us what the repercussions might be of permanently increasing tuition prices for undocumented students. For policymakers, this may be the necessary evidence to support expanding policies that make college more affordable for undocumented immigrants.

Article Source: Conger, Dylan, and Lesley J. Turner. “The Effect of Price Shocks on Undocumented Students’ College Attainment and Completion,” National Bureau of Economic Research, No. 21135 (2015).

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