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Jessica Lopez, whose parents brought her to the U.S. illegally, testifies before a legislative committee at the Statehouse on July 15, 2015.

(SHIRA SCHOENBERG / THE REPUBLICAN)

BOSTON - Students who entered the United States illegally rallied at the Statehouse on Wednesday to support bills that would give them in-state college tuition and access to state financial aid.

Similar bills have been considered by the Legislature since 2002 but have never passed.

"Students and families and schools have waited way too long... to see a solution to what really is a senseless and systematic locking out of an entire population of young people who are talented, who are smart and who are hard-working and who could be our state's future nurses and doctors and teachers and entrepreneurs and innovators," said Carlos Rojas Alvarez.

Rojas Alvarez's parents brought him to the United States from Colombia illegally when he was 5 years old, he said. He graduated high school in 2012 but has not attended college because his immigration status doesn't allow for financial help.

Opponents of the bill counter that the students should not receive taxpayer subsidies after they came to the country illegally. "Why should the hard working taxpayers who play by the rules subsidize those who do not?" said state Rep. Marc Lombardo, R-Billerica. "The answer is, they shouldn't."

The Legislature's Joint Committee on Higher Education held a hearing Wednesday on several bills that would expand the availability of in-state tuition and state financial aid to illegal immigrants.

Under Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, Massachusetts began giving in-state tuition to illegal immigrants who qualified under a federal law giving them "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" status. To qualify, immigrants must have come to the United States before age 16, been in the country for at least five years, have no criminal history and have graduated from a U.S. high school, earned a GED or served in the military.

The bills pending before the Legislature would expand this to give in-state tuition at public universities and colleges to all students who lived in Massachusetts for at least three years and graduated from a Massachusetts high school or earned a GED, whether or not they qualified for federal deferred action status. Giving students access to state financial aid would let them use that aid at either a public or private university.

The committee is also considering a bill by Lombardo that would reverse Patrick's decision to provide some illegal immigrants with in-state tuition.

Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, said during his gubernatorial campaign that he supports Patrick's executive order giving illegal immigrants with work permits in-state tuition. But he opposes granting in-state tuition to other illegal immigrants.

"If you get in-state tuition subsidized by the taxpayers, you need to be able to work here when you graduate," Baker said during an October 2014 debate.

Baker reiterated that stance on Wednesday. "If you can work here in the commonwealth upon graduation, then we believe you should be allowed to access a taxpayer-supported higher education, because it helps you to improve your skills and capabilities and that's good for everybody," Baker said. "But that's pretty much as far as we go on this."

Jessica Lopez, an undocumented Colombian immigrant living in Boston, is among those who would have been helped by the bill. Lopez, 22, came to the U.S. at age 6 and attended Boston schools. She now has Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status.

After graduation, Lopez attended Quincy College, Bunker Hill Community College and then Bridgewater State University, where she is majoring in social work. She switched between schools depending on which school was more affordable given her immigration status. She now pays in-state tuition but struggles due to a lack of financial aid, and she expects to take five or six years to graduate.

"It puts Massachusetts to shame that we have to continue to send students somewhere else - to California to any other state that allows them to pay in-state tuition - when we have the best schools here," Lopez said at a rally before the Statehouse hearing.

"I pay almost $13,000 to go to Bridgewater and to fund the education of other people who tell me I don't deserve one," Lopez said.

David Silva, provost and academic vice president at Salem State University, said the university supports giving students who are illegal immigrants in-state tuition as a matter of equity and as a way to attract the best students to Salem State and build "intellectual capital" in Massachusetts by increasing the number of college graduates. Silva said the policy makes "economic and common sense."

The Massachusetts Teachers Association, which represents teachers, faculty and staff at public kindergarten through grade 12 schools, community colleges, state universities and the University of Massachusetts, also supports providing in-state tuition.

"We need to make sure that higher education is accessible to those who earned admission into a college or university," said Julie Johnson, a lobbyist for the association, according to her prepared testimony. Johnson said faculty and staff "believe that Massachusetts can and should be a place of equal opportunity for all students who have done all that their schools and teachers have asked of them and have proved by their hard work and commitment that they deserve the same opportunity that every other Massachusetts student has."

In a hearing room packed with more than 100 advocates and students, some wearing graduation caps, Lombardo was a rare voice speaking in opposition.

"As a commonwealth, we spend nearly $2 billion annually for benefits for those who break the rules," Lombardo told the committee. "In-state tuition is part of that equation. This bill is about fairness to the taxpayers of Massachusetts and the taxpayers of the U.S.A."

Lombardo said many immigrants who would benefit from the bill are unable to be legally employed in the United States, so it would not help the U.S. economy to subsidize their education.

"If you live in Maine and you're a legal resident of the U.S., you have to pay full tuition rates at Massachusetts universities, and yet those illegally in the country can get taxpayer subsidized tuition rates," Lombardo said. "How is that fair?"

A 2011 report by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation estimated that public colleges and universities would be able to accept an estimated 315 to 365 students annually who were illegal immigrants with little added cost. The colleges and universities would take in an additional $2 million the first year, and $4 million to $7.5 million each of the next three years in tuition and fee revenue. The foundation, whose analysis was done before Patrick gave in-state tuition to some of these students, found that most of the students who would get in-state tuition are currently not attending these schools, which is why total revenue would increase. The analysis did not include the cost of providing state-funded financial aid.