Non-Citizen Mexican Youth in US Higher Education: A Closer Look at the Relationship between State Tuition Policies and College Enrollment

This paper examines state policies that extend or deny in-state tuition to children of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Using the Current Population Survey (1997-2010), we assess changes in college enrollment among Mexican-born non-citizens — a proxy for the undocumented population. In contrast to previous analyses, we find that policies extending in-state tuition to undocumented youth do not directly affect rates of college enrollment. However, we find that Mexican-born non-citizen youth residing in states that deny in-state tuition have a 12.1 percentage point lower probability of being enrolled in college than their peers living in states with no such policies.