Yesterday, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said that Metro State’s important new classification for standard-rate tuition for undocumented students is illegal and I just finished listening to the Joint Budget Committee’s hearing concerning their decision.

Now is not the time to play political football with undocumented students. Will you join us and sign a petition to stand with Metro and demand fair tuition for undocumented students?

Click here to sign the petition and share it with your friends.

Metro’s decision to create a new tuition rate for undocumented students who have earned a degree from a Colorado high school is on good legal standing. We can’t let right-wing fringe politicians deny access to affordable education to Colorado students who are, as President Obama says, “for all intents and purposes Americans.”

There is legal precedent for Metro’s decision, and Attorney General Suther’s opinion is non-binding. But, we can’t give an inch.

We’re asking for your help to spread the word and stand with Metro. With your support, we all can give thousands of children hope for the future.

Click here to sign the petition, and then tell your friends.

President Obama granted legal status to Dream Act students, including members of the military. As the President put it, “It makes no sense to expel talented young persons who are, for all intents and purposes, Americans.”

Last week, Metropolitan State University of Denver led with an important new classification for standard-rate tuition for undocumented students.

The right wing is already mobilizing against President Obama and Metropolitan State’s policies. We need to show them that every Colorado student, regardless of the family they are born into, should have access to the American Dream. Please donate $5, $50 or whatever you can afford now! 

We must support and elect candidates who support Colorado Asset this election. Together, we will make this dream a reality.

Crisanta Duran

From Viva Colorado:

More than 200 Colorado Latinos and their backers, including some 40 elected officials, helped launch the American Dream Political Action Committee this morning with a fundraising breakfast at the Denver Athletic Club in support of Colorado’s ASSET legislation.

The PAC, founded by seven of the state’s most powerful Latinas, is focused – for now – on rallying resources to get the Colorado ASSET bill passed in the state Legislature this year.

A student “Dreamer” from Aurora and syndicated radio personality Mario Solis Marich, whose national Clear Channel show was recently canceled, also spoke in support of the bill, which would create a third tier of tuition – an amount higher than residents pay but below out-of-state rates – for undocumented students at state colleges and universities.

This is the sixth time in recent years that the Legislature has considered such a bill.

“Politics isn’t just about passion, it’s really about power,” said Rep. Crisanta Duran, D-Denver, who along with Veronica Barela, Patricia Barela Rivera, Nita Gonzales, Joelle Martinez, the Hon. Ramona Martinez and Cindy Peña founded the American Dream PAC. “We need to be able to build political power to get issues like Colorado ASSET to be passed. Being able to financially support candidates who are champions of these issues is one of the things we really need to focus us on as a community. That’s really where the idea came from.”

The inaugural fundraiser was a sellout, with about $10,000 raised that will go directly to candidates who support this effort.

Read more at Viva Colorado.

For Colorado to make a lasting economic recovery we must promote the education of all of our students through policies that don’t cost the state a dime, but instead increase revenues to our local colleges and universities. One of the main criteria companies look for when locating in Colorado is the quality of our workforce.

Currently, Colorado has the second most highly educated workforce in the country, but we force some of our best and brightest students who graduate from our schools to go elsewhere to further their education. More college graduates attract more companies and more jobs. Thirteen other states around the country make undocumented students pay in-state tuition. Some of these states have had their policies in place for up to nine years, and none of them are experiencing the increase of undocumented immigrants that people opposed to Colorado ASSET would have you believe will come. Texas even offers financial aid to their undocumented students and still hasn’t seen a substantial increase in the number of undocumented immigrants in their state. But these states, especially those that border Colorado, are benefiting from the students who leave Colorado to attend college.

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme court ruled that K-12 schools must educate all children regardless of their legal status. We must realize that investment by making them pay in-state tuition rates so that they can afford to attend college and become a productive member of our society. RAND Corporation conducted a study that estimated that a 30-year-old immigrant who graduates from college provides a $9,000 net annual benefit to the state through increased economic contributions and tax revenues and decreased reliance on public services.

Colorado ASSET will serve as a key piece of Colorado’s economic recovery plan:

• For the thousands of students currently in line to become citizens, making them pay standard-rate tuition helps guarantee an educated workforce once they attain citizenship.
• This bill will create revenue for Colorado’s colleges and universities.
• We have invested in these kids’ K-12 education, we must realize that investment. Colorado has the second highest percentage of college graduates in the nation, but ranks 32nd in sending our own high school graduates to college. Failing to educate our students has implications not just for education, but for our economy.

• College graduates are less likely to be caught in a cycle of poverty. Students with a college degree are more productive and civically engaged – they are more likely to help strengthen the economy, vote, and contribute more to the state tax base and are less likely to end up in the correction system.

Brings In Revenue To Higher Ed

• Colorado ASSET will raise millions of dollars each year in additional tuition revenue for our financially-strapped institutions of higher education.