CASO

Each year over 130 students who qualify for RI In-State Tuition graduate from RI high schools. These students include honor roll awardees and star athletes, as well as aspiring engineers, scientists, teachers, and doctors. Brought to the United States by their parents as infants or young children, they live in the only country they know as home-America. Many graduate with spectacular records from RI high schools, but their families cannot afford to send them to RI colleges or universities, which charge them out-of-state tuition rates. For these students, the “American dream” must be deferred.

Between 2012-2017 academic year, a total of 403 have applied for admission and were accepted into one of the three Rhode Island state colleges — CCRI, RIC and URI. These figures include Fall, Spring and Summer session. The figures do not include whether the students followed through and enrolled into these colleges.

In order to be eligible to benefit for RI in-state tuition, students must:
✦ Have attended an approved RI high school for three or more years
✦ Have graduated from an approved RI high school or received a high school equivalency diploma from the state of Rhode Island
✦ Have registered as an entering student at, or is currently enrolled at, an accredited institution of higher education in Rhode Island not earlier than the fall semester or quarter of the 2011-2012 academic year
✦ Have filed with the institution of higher education an affidavit stating that:
✦ The student meets the aforementioned requirements
✦ The student is a U.S. citizen, has lawful immigration status, or, if the student is not a U.S. citizen and does not have a lawful immigration status, has filed an application for lawful immigration status, or will file such an application as soon as he or she is eligible to do so.