<p>Point of correction:
Illegal immigration accounts for only about 3% of CA agricultural employment. (i.e., field workers).</p>
<p>But in any case I think these last posts are not addressing the issue of in-state residency for UC tuition.</p>
<p>Years ago, it should not have been a burning issue that a small percentage of students were getting formal permission (and reduced rates) for their illegal status. Now, when every penny of a state budget counts, and affects what is available to others in the State and to other services for different poor, legally residing residents in that state, you bet it makes a difference. It doesn’t make a difference for people on CC who can afford, or afford with some discomfort, full tuition, and do not rely on the state for other services; but there are thousands not on this board who are here legally and for whom darn right that a liberally (not meant in the political sense) irresponsible definition of “residency” does make a difference.</p>
<p>For an institution, let alone such a vast one like the UC system, to make decisions based on past assumptions of super-funding, has consequences for other as- or more-deserving families, because the revenue is “made up” on the backs of others. And/or the revenue to fund intra-University programs and departments disappears. (A near possibility already being discussed) Not in the past, in the present. Wake up, people; it’s not 1970 anymore.</p>