The Providence Journal reports.

The Rhode Island Office of Higher Education said Monday that 59 undocumented students are paying in-state tuition rates to attend a state college or university..
This fall, 56 such students enrolled at the Community College of Rhode Island, two at the University of Rhode Island and one at Rhode Island College.
Combined, they paid about $93,000 in tuition, compared with $261,000 they would have paid in out-of-state rates. They pay the full in-state rate and are not eligible for any federal financial aid.

I try not to criticize reporters, especially those here in Rhode Island, especially a reporter who appears to have broken this predictable and unfortunate development. But what does Jennifer D. Jordan mean by “full in-state rate”? In-state tuition is a CUT rate. There’s nothing “full” about in-state tuition; it does not cover the cost of educating that student – at URI, not by a long shot. Using the term “full” here can only be described as misleading.
Jobs (i.e., the absence of e-verify), social programs (marked by the state’s use of an 666 by-pass number), free health care (Medicaid), free primary and secondary education, and now in-state tuition – our elected officials have inexplicably lengthened, not shortened, the list of enticements for illegal aliens to come to the state and, correspondingly, increased the burden on the state’s already overburdened taxpayer.
Terry Gorman’s OpEd in today’s GoLocalProv could not have been better timed.

What Illegal alien worth his salt, seeing all the above benefits, would not be enticed into making Rhode Island an ideal location for his family? How could he/she resist all of the benefits? We already are seeing the chilling effect Illegal Immigration is having on our State budget. How much more can we sustain without going over our own Fiscal Cliff?

The solution that most of us propose to address illegal immigration is eminently reasonable, minimalist, almost passive: implement e-verify for public and private sector employment, screen out unqualified applications for social programs, cease in-state tution for illegal alien students. This will discourage illegal immigration into the state and, correspondingly, begin reducing the involuntary expenses (primary and secondary education being the largest) that are mandated by federal law. The cost of illegal immigration directly impacts – i.e. INCREASES – both local and state taxes; accordingly, the argument that immigration is a federal problem with solely a federal solution rings entirely hollow. It’s time that our state officials stop handing Rhode Island taxpayers the bill for policies that advance a political, selfish, quite destructive agenda and begin acting for the larger good – if not because it’s the right thing to do, how about because the state is now dead broke despite being taxed to the max.