Colorado Says It’s About Education

Colorado’s fight with the Justice Department over college tuition for undocumented students is turning a basic question — who counts as “in-state” — into a national test of who government really serves.

Story Snapshot

Colorado is being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice over laws that let some undocumented students pay in-state tuition and get state financial aid.
Governor Jared Polis says the policy is legal because it is based on high school attendance and time living in Colorado, not on immigration status.
Federal lawyers argue the law gives better treatment to undocumented students than to many U.S. citizens from other states.
The case highlights a bigger clash over state power, federal immigration rules, and who gets a fair shot at the American Dream.

Colorado’s tuition fight moves from campus to courtroom

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Colorado over its laws that allow certain undocumented students to pay in-state tuition and receive state-funded financial aid at public colleges and universities. Federal officials claim these laws violate a federal statute that bars states from giving higher-education benefits to people here illegally based on residency unless the same deal is open to all U.S. citizens, no matter where they live. The lawsuit targets Colorado’s Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow, or ASSET, Act and later expansions that opened aid to thousands of students without legal status.

Governor Jared Polis has gone on national television to defend the policy and Colorado’s right to set its own tuition rules. Polis argues that these students are part of Colorado communities and schools, but still cannot get federal help such as Pell Grants or federal student loans because of their status. He says the state is choosing to invest its own tax dollars in young people who grew up in Colorado, rather than waiting for Washington to fix the immigration system.

How Colorado’s in-state rules actually work

Colorado’s leaders say their program is legal because it does not base in-state tuition on immigration status, but on ties to the state such as high school attendance and physical presence. Under Colorado’s 2013 ASSET law and later bills, students without legal status can qualify for in-state tuition if they attended a Colorado high school for a set number of years, graduated, and meet other timing rules for college admission. A 2019 law then opened access to state financial aid for these same students, letting them compete for part of Colorado’s roughly $160 million in annual aid funds.

In 2022, Governor Polis signed House Bill 22-1155, which changed the rules again for recent Colorado high school graduates. Before that bill, undocumented students had to show three years in a Colorado high school to get in-state rates, while many other residents only had to live in the state for one year. The new law removed several barriers and aligned the standard so that Colorado high school graduates, regardless of citizenship, could qualify after one year, closing what supporters saw as an unfair gap between undocumented teens and other residents.

Justice Department’s case: unfair benefits and federal preemption

Federal lawyers say Colorado crossed a legal line by creating a system where undocumented students can get in-state rates and state aid that many out-of-state American citizens cannot access. The complaint argues this violates a federal law, 8 U.S.C. Section 1623, which aims to prevent states from granting “postsecondary education benefits” to people here illegally on the basis of residence, unless those benefits are available to all U.S. citizens regardless of where they live. In plain terms, Washington is saying Colorado cannot treat a student in the country illegally better than a U.S. citizen from Kansas or Ohio.

Colorado officials push back by stressing that eligibility turns on education history inside Colorado, not on legal immigration status or simple “residency.” The state attorney general’s office has said the tuition law “does not favor undocumented residents over out-of-state American citizens” because it is not a residency rule but a high school or physical presence rule. Supporters also point to another federal statute, 8 U.S.C. Section 1621(d), which allows states to extend certain benefits to undocumented immigrants if they pass a law clearly saying so, something Colorado did after 2013.

Polis’ defense and what both sides are afraid of

Governor Polis’ team has called the lawsuit “absurd” and says states, not Washington, have long decided who counts as in-state for tuition. They argue Colorado’s approach mirrors policies in more than twenty other states that let certain undocumented students pay in-state rates if they did part of their schooling locally. Polis frames the policy as giving young people who grew up in Colorado a chance to get skills and jobs, instead of forcing them into low-wage work or the underground economy because of choices their parents made years ago.

𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐎 𝐆𝐎𝐕 𝐏𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐒 𝐃𝐄𝐅𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐒 $𝟏𝟓,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐈𝐍-𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐔𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐆𝐀𝐋 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐒 𝐀𝐒 𝐃𝐎𝐉 𝐒𝐔𝐄𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊 𝐈𝐓

The Trump Justice Department sued Colorado this week over a state law that lets students living in the… pic.twitter.com/PBvUOuTAEq

— M.A. Rothman (@MichaelARothman) July 25, 2026

Critics, including many conservatives nationwide, see something different: a state giving what they view as a better deal to people in the country illegally than to law-abiding Americans in other states. They argue this adds one more pull factor for illegal immigration and shifts scarce seats and aid dollars away from citizens who are already squeezed by high tuition and inflation. At the same time, many liberals worry that a court loss could slam the door on “Dreamer” students across the country and let Washington override state efforts to expand opportunity.

What this fight reveals about power, fairness, and the “deep state”

This case taps into a deeper anger shared on both left and right: a belief that the rules are written by and for powerful insiders, while regular families fight over the scraps. For many conservatives, the tuition fight looks like another example of leaders ignoring border laws while ordinary citizens pay higher taxes and tuition. For many liberals, it looks like a federal government quick to crack down on students, but slow to fix a broken immigration system or make college affordable for anyone.

Underneath the legal arguments is a basic question: who gets counted as “one of us” when government hands out benefits paid for with tax dollars? Colorado says years in local schools and proof of living in the state is enough. The Justice Department says federal immigration categories and national rules come first. However the courts rule, this battle will shape how much power states have to chart their own path — and whether young people raised in America get a ladder up or hit another wall.