The state Senate moved Kansas a bit toward the common sense center Wednesday.
A Senate committee voted to recommend that a bill not be passed which repealed a 2004 law that allowed the undocumented children of immigrants who had attended a Kansas high school for three or more years to attend a postsecondary school and pay in-state tuition. The adverse recommendation means that the bill is dead for the session.
The Senate also voted, 24 to 13, to kill an executive reorganization order doing away with the Kansas Arts Commission, thereby denying Kansas fine arts programs substantial subsidies provided through the KAC.
Without state matching funds, the state loses $778,200 in federal funding. In addition, it also loses $437,676 in grants, programs and services provided by the Mid America Arts Alliance. To gain this $1,215,876 for Kansas and its communities, the state has only had to invest $575,000 in matching money.
The executive order by Gov. Sam Brownback was issued without an opportunity for debate in the Legislature or comment from the arts organizations across the state — such as the Buster Keaton Celebration committee and the Cultural Attractions Committee in Iola.
Neither the money that the KAC helps bring to Kansas or the amount the state provides are a significant fraction of the $11 billion state budget. But the KAC dollars do make a difference in small communities like ours.
Because the KAC has supported the Buster Keaton Celebration from the beginning, the Bowlus Fine Arts Center has achieved a unique place among the international community of students of silent movies. For years now, outstanding scholars and self-made experts from London, New York City, Hollywood and many university campuses in this region have come to Iola every fall to participate in the festival.
Not only did the Kansas Arts Commission give the Keaton Celebration an annual grant, it also lends its enthusiastic support, which gives the festival an endorsement of incalculable value.
Finally, doing away with the Arts Commission is a statement that made Kansas look second class. Those who voted to overturn the governor’s order — including Sen. Jeff King of Independence, who represents Allen County so well — deserve a heartfelt vote of thanks from all of us.
THE DECISION to affirm the importance of higher education to all who live in Kansas was also a statement of cultural values. The 2004 law allows children who were brought into the United States by their parents as youngsters — as infants, in some cases — to attend a community college, technical school or university and to pay the same tuition that their Kansas high school classmates would, even if they had not achieved citizenship.
The law doesn’t give them any subsidy or preference. By attending, they provide in-come to the school they choose that it would not otherwise have.
These college-age students all have been in the U.S. for much of their lives. There is every reason to assume that they will remain residents. In order to qualify for in-state tuition they must sign a pledge to seek citizenship.
This year 413 students are taking advantage of the law. Of those, 323 are attending community colleges and 62 are attending a regents university. Of that 62, 25 are attending Fort Hays University and may be living at home. A look at this distribution shows that most are at low-cost community colleges, an indication that the students could not afford to pay the much higher out-of-state tuition that supporters of the repealer bill say they should pay.
In testimony in favor of the 2004 law before the Senate Federal and State Affairs Commitee on Wednesday, Gary Sherrer, a former Lt. Gov. who is currently chairman of the Board of Regents, said:
“ … The Board supports this law because it embodies the concept of expanded educational opportunity for people who live in Kansas and who seek to enhance their ability to contribute to the well-being of our state and its economy … and because it believes that given the remarkably competitive and increasingly global economic environment that confronts us, Kansas truly needs a highly educated work force if it is to remain competitive and reach its full potential.”
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
