Strong House GOP support for 22-year-old program melts during negotiations

TOPEKA — The Kansas Legislature’s bill repealing a law offering in-state tuition rates at public colleges or universities to students who immigrated to the United States and live in Kansas without proper documentation continues a bizarre journey through the political process.

The Senate passed a bill in January that would end the tuition program created decades ago by a bipartisan coalition of legislators and Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. The House, after bypassing the normal committee vetting process, responded in February by approving a version of the bill preserving the in-state tuition option for immigrant students who attended a Kansas high school for three years, earned a diploma and applied for citizenship.

The Senate and House were at loggerheads for six weeks, until House Republicans surrendered.

Rep. Tom Kessler, the Wichita Republican leading negotiations on Senate Bill 254 for the House, said he made a deal with the Senate to repeal the immigrant tuition program at public colleges and universities in Kansas. In exchange, the Senate agreed to drop legislation denying bond to people who were arrested but unable to prove they were lawfully in the United States.

There were bipartisan objections in the House to Kessler waiving a white flag.

Republican Rep. Chuck Smith, a retired teacher from Pittsburg, said the state ought to continue offering educational opportunities to Kansans, including children brought to this country years ago by their parents.

“Let these kids go to school on in-state tuition,” he said. “If you charge them the out-of-state tuition, they don’t get to go to school.”

Undergraduate in-state tuition at Kansas State University in the 2025-2026 academic year was $11,200, but out-of-state tuition at K-State for a full year was $28,500.

“I think we need to hold our position against the Senate,” said Rep. Heather Meyer, D-Overland Park.

The House voted 78-46 to affirm the bargain on Thursday. The 78 House votes for the deal was six short of a two-thirds majority that would be necessary to override a potential veto by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.

The Senate has yet to vote on the latest incarnation of SB 254, which also would declare in state law that people without legal authority to be in the United States couldn’t receive city, county or state public benefits unless otherwise mandated by the federal government. Opposition to the tuition law appeared greatest in the Senate, which defeated an amendment by Sen. Tim Shallenburger, R-Baxter Springs, to block elimination of the program.

“Why on earth are you, Kansas Legislature, providing a benefit to illegal aliens that you do not provide to Americans,” said Sen. Virgil Peck, R-Havana.

In January, the Senate had passed 30-9 the original version of SB 254. It forbid insufficiently documented immigrants from qualifying for in-state tuition at state universities, community colleges, technical colleges and municipal universities.

The House in February flipped the script and approved by a vote of 86-36 a distinctly different version of the bill that preserved the in-state tuition program.

“We have complete innocents who are being harmed,” said Rep. Bob Lewis, R-Garden City.

Lewis was among a significant number of House Republicans who initially supported retention of the tuition law and ultimately voted for its demise.

Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican and longstanding critic of the in-state tuition law, argued failure by Kansas to eliminate the tuition program could prompt President Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice to file a lawsuit against Kansas on the tuition issue. Kobach says Kansas’ immigrant tuition break violated federal law.

“The Trump Department of Justice is cracking down on states that have been violating that specific law banning in-state tuition for illegal aliens,” Kobach said in a nonbinding legal opinion issued in February. “Kansas legislators would do well to bring Kansas into compliance with the law rather than being sued by the federal government.”

Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican and chairman of the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, said action should be taken to erase the tuition benefit because “Kansas has been in violation of federal now for 22 years.”

Bitter opposition to Kansas’ in-state tuition program for immigrant children was evident decades ago. Then-state Rep. Scott Schwab had the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States in mind when he explained his “no” vote against House Bill 2145 during the 2004 legislative session. Some of the terrorists received flight training in the United States before they hijacked commercial airliners used to kill nearly 3,000 people.

“We Kansans are very benevolent,” said Schwab, the current Kansas secretary of state and a GOP candidate for governor, in 2004. “If terrorists come to get a pilot’s license at a Kansas university, at least we gave them in-state tuition before they use it against us.”

Rep. Rui Xu, D-Westwood, said loss of the tuition program for immigrant children would weaken the idea of the United States as a land of educational opportunity.

Xu said his parents, who earned college degrees in China and Switzerland, moved to the United States when he was 2 years old. Their quest was to give their children, Xu and his sister, the chance to earn an education in America, he said.

“Denying these students in-state tuition doesn’t fix our immigration system,” Xu said. “It doesn’t hold a single politician in Washington, D.C., accountable. All it does is punish children who are already here, already contributing and trying to build a future.”

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

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