Illegal immigrants are eligible for tuition-free community college in Minnesota, just as they are in Massachusetts, thanks to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.
Walz, 60, is Kamala Harris’s pick for the Democratic nomination for vice president.
When Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey signed the state’s fiscal year 2025 budget into law last week, she joined Governor Walz in providing free college to illegal immigrants.
Healey made community college tuition-free regardless of income level; that’s because the budget contained a program called MassEducate that even covers illegal immigrants, as NewBostonPost reported first last week.
It’s similar, yet different, to a program that Governor Walz signed into law that provides illegal immigrants with free college in Minnesota; Walz approved an income-capped free college program that covers both two-year and four-year schools.
The bill Walz signed contained a provision making state colleges and universities — including four-year schools — tuition-free for Minnesota families making less than $80,000 per year, according to Scripps News. The program, called the North Star Promise Scholarship, will cost the state $117 million annually, according to CBS News.
Walz signed the bill into law in May 2023, and it will take effect at the start of the 2024-2025 school year.
Here are the eligibility guidelines for students to receive a North Star Promise Scholarship, according to Dakota County Technical College:
Have not already earned a baccalaureate degree (including those earned in a foreign country)
Be enrolled in a program or course of study that applies to a degree, diploma, or certificate
And here are the additional eligibility guidelines for illegal immigrant students to use the free college program, according to Dakota County Technical College:
Attended a Minnesota high school for at least 3 years; and
Graduated from a Minnesota high school or earned a GED in Minnesota; and
Complied with Selective Service registration requirements (applies only to male students born in 1960 or after); and
Provide documentation to show they have applied for lawful immigration status but only if a federal process exists for a student to do so (does not include applying for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). There is currently not a federal process in place, so this documentation is not currently required.
Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance spokesman Paul Craney criticized the policy, contending that it’s bad for taxpayers.
“The Harris Waltz ticket and the Healey Driscoll administration share some of the same policy goals, so when these policies don’t work, there is no one to blame but themselves,” Craney told NewBostonPost in an email message. “In this case, it’s free college, and driver’s licenses for illegal and inadmissible immigrants, which is part of the magnet that is bringing so many illegal and inadmissible immigrants to Massachusetts. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is quickly finding out these shared policy goals come at a very high price for the state’s taxpayers.”
As Craney points out, Walz also signed a bill into law making illegal immigrants eligible for driver’s licenses in March 2023. The Massachusetts legislature made driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants law in June 2022 — a move that then-Attorney General Healey supported.
The press office for Governor Walz could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.
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