Today, the U.S. Department of Justice filed suit against the State of Virginia over how the state provides tuition assistance to certain migrant students. While the case is narrowly focused, it raises a broader issue for colleges and universities: whether long-standing approaches to residency and tuition eligibility may now face greater federal scrutiny.
For enrollment management and registrar leaders, this is not a political question. It is an operational one—focused on compliance risk, process resilience, and the ability to adapt when rules change quickly.
For decades, institutions have relied on a clear separation:
Immigration status determines whether a student may lawfully live and study in the United States.
Residency status determines whether a student qualifies for in-state tuition or state financial aid.
These decisions have been governed by different laws and made for different purposes.
This framework became especially visible after the introduction of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) in 2012. Colleges enrolled DACA and undocumented students under federal guidance, while states continued to apply residency rules based on domicile, duration, and intent.
For more than a decade, this separation was widely accepted and operationalized. Residency determinations were treated as routine administrative work, not an area of heightened legal risk.
Recent legislative changes in Florida and Texas altered this environment—not because institutions lacked clarity, but because the rules themselves changed.
In Florida, lawmakers enacted legislation ending in-state tuition eligibility for undocumented students, reversing a policy that had been in place for years and doing so without grandfathering currently enrolled students or providing a meaningful transition period
In Texas, court action and related policy changes similarly eliminated access to in-state tuition for undocumented students, again applying the new rules immediately rather than prospectively
In both states:
Eligibility for in-state tuition or state aid was more tightly linked to immigration-related criteria.
Existing students were not grandfathered under prior rules.
Institutions were given limited time to update policies, systems, and communications.
For enrollment and registrar offices, the impact was immediate. Long-standing practices had to be revised mid-cycle, often while students were already enrolled and receiving aid. These changes highlighted how quickly external decisions can force institutions to adjust, regardless of internal readiness.
Virginia’s situation differs in an important way. Unlike Florida and Texas—where legislatures explicitly rewrote eligibility rules—the current issue centers on whether a long-standing state approach to tuition assistance conflicts with federal law, and whether the U.S. Department of Justice can challenge it after years of accepted practice.
That distinction matters because it suggests a broader risk:
Not just adapting to new laws, but
Reexamining practices that institutions assumed were settled.
For states that have not changed their statutes, this is the more relevant signal.
Recent developments point to a simple conclusion: residency determinations may no longer be insulated from external review.
Institutions may want to assess:
How residency decisions are defined and applied across the institution
How decisions are documented and supported
How quickly processes can change if new rules arrive without transition periods
The experiences in Florida and Texas show that changes may come without grandfathering or extended implementation timelines.
For many years, colleges and universities operated under a stable assumption: immigration status and residency status were separate administrative questions, and that separation was rarely challenged. Recent actions suggest that this stability cannot be taken for granted.
The practical takeaway for enrollment management and registrar leadership is straightforward. Institutions that maintain clear, well-documented, and adaptable residency processes will be better positioned to comply with changing requirements—whether those changes come from state legislatures or increased federal scrutiny.
This is not about predicting outcomes. It is about ensuring that core enrollment operations can withstand them.