By: State Representative Byron Cook, (R) Corsicana,
Texas House District 8
Recently Amazon announced its next headquarters
would be in New York and Virginia. Since the two
finalists from Texas (Dallas and Austin) lost out on
this opportunity for approximately 50,000 new jobs
and up to $5 billion in investment, it is important to
understand why.
One of the reasons why we lost out may be the
prominence of manufactured social issues used to
promote unnecessary legislation, like the 2017 socalled
“bathroom bill.” Although this bad proposal
was defeated twice, other needless bills will likely return
when lawmakers convene in 2019, with the most
likely of which and potentially most harmful to our
state being the removal of in-state tuition for undocumented
immigrants.
Under Republican Governor Rick Perry’s leadership
in 2001, Texas became the first state to pass
an in-state resident tuition policy that gives undocumented
students who graduate from Texas high
schools and meet certain requirements the same
in-state tuition rates afforded to other Texans. The
law makes college more affordable for students who
were brought to Texas by no fault of their own and
now call Texas home.
As evidence of how persistently this law has been
under attack, since enacted, over 30 bills have been
filed to repeal all or some of its provisions. As of November
28, one bill has been filed in advance of the
2019 session. And, unfortunately, there will likely be
more.
Some claim the law allows undocumented students
to attend college for free, and that is simply not true.
This law is not a drain on our taxpayer dollars, but a
judicious investment in our state’s youth. Since the
U.S. Constitution requires that all children living in
our country (even undocumented immigrants) have
the right to public education, why would we not continue
to invest in these kids when they attend college
after spending years educating them in our public
schools?
Restricting access to higher education
not only hurts the undocumented students
who have lived in our state for years, but
it also hurts our economy. When serving
as chair of the House Select Committee
on Economic Competitiveness last fall, our
committee heard testimony from numerous
witnesses who repeatedly cited our
state’s lack of an educated workforce as a
concern for our future economic success.
Notably, we learned that the Hispanic
population is the fastest growing in our
state and currently has one of the lowest
rates of educational attainment. As the
vice president and senior economist of
the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Dr.
Pia M. Orrenius, testified, “Texas is on the
brink of squandering a demographic dividend
by underinvesting in a pool of high
school graduates.”
By removing the in-state tuition rates for
undocumented immigrants, we are reducing
the number of students who can afford
a college degree, and therefore decreasing
our state’s skilled workforce. We need
to ensure that everyone who lives in this great state is
educated so they can reach their fullest potential and
fill the critical gaps in our workforce.
Unfortunately, some lawmakers continue to promote
pointless legislation that offers no benefit and
actually hurts our state. As the next legislative session
convenes in January, it is critical that instead of
focusing on unnecessary legislation, that our state’s
leaders find ways to increase educational attainment
so the quality of life for all Texans can be improved
and the state will be more attractive to businesses
like Amazon in the future.
Note: The Texas House Select Committee on Economic
Competitiveness’ 2018 interim report can be
found at the following link: https://house.texas.gov/_
media/pdf/committees/reports/Interim-Report-Select-
Committee-on-Economic-Competitiveness.pdf.
Contact: Toni Barcellona, Chief of Staff, St. Rep. Byron
Cook, 512-463-0814
