The topic of the impact of illegal aliens arises again in the college admission trends or practices as shown in a news item today in the blog, "The Chroncle of Highr Education," as "Most Colleges Knowingly Admit Illegal Immigrants as Students, Survey Finds" http://chronicle.com/news/article/6139/most-colleges-knowingly-admit-illegal-immigrants-as-students-survey-finds - These were the conclusions based on responses to inquiries made of 2,000 members of the "American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers."
There were about 1/3 of the members responding to show that some made inquiry into immigration status in regard to admissions, and that among those, there was a higher percentage (70%) making the verification when it came to public two-year schools, and 41% doing so among the private four-year colleges. 31% of responses said that they only inquired of legal status when it came to requests for financial aid.
The issue here is important as the economy is so poor and the idea that persons who are legally not entitled to the services they receive are depriving citizens or legal residents of those services. This is compounded when services and benefits become less available as budgets for governmental entities and educational institutions shrink, and limitations become more severe and opportunities are less plentiful. In times when economic impact could be viewed as positive or neutral, many now look at the situation as contributing to the problems of the nation.
It's always been like that with opportunity programs where there are more people with needs than an availability of service to meet those needs. It's been a situation of "fighting for the crumbs" when things become scarce. The comments shown in the blog reflect that increasing attitudes of a public seeing this as improper handling of the opportunities. A lot of the blame rests upon the federal government that did not enforce existing laws and fostered the conditions that we have now, and with local government as in Los Angeles, that make deliberate accommodations to the illegal alien population and avoid inquiries into legal status.
It's probably going to result in a condition of less tolerance by persons who were more accepting of the situation when times were better financially. Even where notions of unfairness may be incorrect as to the facts upon which they are based, the PERCEPTIONS of the deviations from having "fair" conditions for people will prevail, affecting opinions as strongly as if the "facts" were entirely accurate.
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