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Students walk through campus March 19, 2024, at University of Texas at Dallas. (Yfat Yossifor | KERA)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tStudents walk through campus March 19, 2024, at University of Texas at Dallas. (Yfat Yossifor | KERA)<\/p>\n
A federal appeals court on Thursday denied an appeal seeking to restore the Texas Dream Act, leaving in place a ruling that ended in-state tuition for Texas students without legal status.<\/p>\n
In a 2-1 decision, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal after a federal judge struck down the decades-old law<\/a> in June 2025.<\/p>\n For more than two decades, the Texas Dream Act had allowed students without legal status to qualify for in-state tuition if they lived in Texas for at least three years and graduated from a Texas high school or earned a GED.<\/p>\n That changed last year, when the law was overturned <\/a>after the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas, arguing the policy violated federal law. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined the federal government in asking the court to permanently end the law.<\/p>\n Several groups, including Students for Affordable Tuition, La Uni\u00f3n del Pueblo Entero, Austin Community College and student Oscar Silva, appealed the decision<\/a>. They argued they should have been allowed to intervene after Texas declined to defend the law.<\/p>\n The appeals court rejected those arguments in its Thursday ruling, which stated the groups couldn\u2019t successfully defend the statute because federal law<\/a> bars \u201cstates from conferring postsecondary education benefits on any illegal alien based on residence unless the same benefit is available to all U.S. citizens and nationals irrespective of residency.\u201d<\/p>\n The move leaves the lower court\u2019s decision in place, meaning affected students will continue to pay out-of-state tuition rates at Texas public colleges and universities.<\/p>\n About 57,000 students without legal status were enrolled in Texas colleges in 2022, according to a report<\/a> from the President\u2019s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. And a 2023 report <\/a>published by Every Texan found that students without legal status who used the in-state tuition law contributed more than $81 million in tuition and fees in 2021.<\/p>\n