(Texas Scorecard) – State officials on the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board have begun asking colleges and universities to identify which of their students are illegal aliens.
According to a letter penned by THECB Commissioner Wynn Rosser, students in Texas who are illegal aliens and have been paying discounted in-state tuition rates will need to start paying out-of-state tuition by the fall semester.
Colleges and universities “must assess the population of students who have established eligibility for Texas resident tuition … who are not lawfully present and will therefore need to be reclassified as non-residents and charged non-resident tuition,” wrote Rosser.
The letter provided no further guidance about how institutions should comply.
His instruction follows a June 4 injunction by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas against in-state tuition for illegal aliens.
Before the ruling by District Judge Reed O’Connor, illegal aliens were eligible for discounted tuition under those statutes, as amended by the Texas Dream Act in 2001.
O’Connor’s decision came the same day the United States Department of Justice and Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office filed a joint motion for entry of consent judgment.
The motion meant that Paxton refused to defend the Texas law in the case and agreed with the federal government’s concerns.
“Today, I entered a joint motion along with the Trump Administration opposing a law that unconstitutionally and unlawfully gave benefits to illegal aliens that were not available to American citizens,” explained Paxton at the time. “Ending this discriminatory and un-American provision is a major victory for Texas.”
Research by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration showed that, as of August 2024, Texas had the second-highest number of illegal aliens enrolled in colleges and universities with 57,000—behind only California.
The American Immigration Council estimates that there are around 11 million illegal aliens in the United States, representing roughly 3.3 percent of the country’s population.
However, other groups put the number much higher. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated in March 2025 that 18.6 million illegal aliens were residing in the U.S.