The University of California system voted in March to raise tuition for out-of-state students by nearly $1,000, a hike that will not apply to illegal alien students.

The system’s board of regents approved the proposal to increase out-of-state tuition by $978 by a 12-3 vote, reported The College Fix, but California law allows illegal alien students to evade this charge by enrolling as in-state students.

“All students — regardless of immigration status — are subject to the same tuition and fee structures, based on their residency status,” UC spokeswoman Clair Doan told the Fix.

California assembly bill 540 mandates that illegal alien students can obtain in-state tuition if they attend high school in the state for a minimum of three years and earn a California high school diploma.

“It’s really incumbent upon Congress to close that loophole now that it’s exposed,” Federation for American Immigration Reform spokesman Ira Mehlman told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

While colleges do not ask students for their immigration status, public schools are constitutionally prohibited from denying K-12 students free public education on the basis of their immigration status, according to the 1982 Supreme Court decision Plyler v. Doe. (RELATED: Here’s Why Schools Are REQUIRED To Teach Illegal Alien Children)

“UC does not ask its students nor applicants for their immigration status,” Doan explained. But the spokeswoman speculated that the UC system enrolled approximately 3,700 illegal alien students.

Doan may have arrived at this number by identifying illegal alien students via the students’ usage of taxpayer ID numbers and not social security numbers, according to Mehlman.

The University of California system educates nearly a quarter of a million students. UC’s board of regents will vote on increasing base tuition by $348 for all students in May, but its members promised to revoke the hike if the state legislature provides the system with more funding. UC regent chair George Kieffer reported that UC students have 31 percent less funding each in 2018 when compared with their 2000 counterparts.

“California is perpetually broke,” Mehlman told TheDCNF. “And yet they manage to come up with services for illegal aliens.”

The immigration advocacy spokesman elaborated on services the state provides to illegal aliens, such as grants, public housing, as well as various other state and local services.

Mehlman postulated that about half of illegal aliens work “off the books” and the other half use “bogus social security numbers.” The demographic costs California taxpayers over $25 billion per year, according to FAIR.

TheDCNF reached out to the California Immigrant Policy Center for comment but received none in time for press.

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