The California State University system must charge out-of-state tuition to students who live in California but who are in the United States illegally, a state appellate court has ruled.
The decision last month means those students will be charged $8,964 a year in tuition and fees--more than five times the $1,584 paid by California residents, a spokeswoman for the university system said. The new charges will take effect at the end of March for the campuses that operate on the quarter system and next fall for the 14 on the semester system.
About 1,000 of the 320,000 students in the system are illegal immigrants, the spokeswoman estimated. The ruling applies both to current and new students.
The University of California and state community-college systems have been charging undocumented students the higher fees since 1990.
