Texas Eases Tuition Rules for Immigrant Vets

Inside Higher Education reports that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board voted Tuesday to revise its rules for a veterans’ tuition exemption program to include state residents who were not U.S. citizens when they entered the service. Though this had formerly been the state’s policy, Texas’ attorney general ruled in 2005 that residents also needed to be citizens to qualify, prompting the board to change its rules accordingly then. The board reported, however, that the attorney general recently backed away from his stance on citizenship, prompting the board’s emergency meeting to revise the rules before the spring semester begins. Earlier this month, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed suit on behalf of six honorably-discharged veterans — who, as legal permanent residents when they entered the military, were ineligible for the benefit — on the basis that denying them the exemption violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause.

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