DOJ sues Colorado over in-state college tuition for undocumented students

Shelly Bradbury, The Denver Post on Jul 23, 2026

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DENVER — The U.S. Department of Justice sued Colorado on Thursday for offering in-state tuition rates to undocumented students who live in the state, the latest turn in an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to end such tuition breaks for students who are in the country illegally.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, takes aim at a 2013 state law— Advancing Students for a Stronger Tomorrow — that allows undocumented students living in Colorado to pay in-state tuition rates, which are significantly cheaper than out-of-state tuition rates. The law also allows such students to receive in-state financial aid.

The DOJ argues that federal law forbids giving undocumented students in-state tuition rates, because such tuition rates are not available to all U.S. citizens. Citizens who live outside of Colorado do not qualify for in-state tuition, and that makes offering the rates to undocumented students unconstitutional, the DOJ argued.

“These statutes constitute blatant unequal treatment favoring illegal aliens over U.S. citizens,” the complaint reads. “Worse, such preferential treatment is squarely prohibited and preempted by Congress.”

Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, declined to comment on the lawsuit Thursday.

The federal government recently brought similar challenges to tuition breaks for undocumented students in Texas, Kentucky, Minnesota and Oklahoma as part of the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on immigration. Florida in 2025 repealed its 2014 law allowing undocumented students to qualify for in-state tuition.

The DOJ found success in Texas, where a federal appeals court this month upheld a ruling that ended the state’s 24-year-old law allowing some undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates. The ruling, which applied only in Texas, was seen as an opening for conservatives to challenge similar laws across the country.

A federal judge in Oklahoma ended the practice there after a DOJ lawsuit, and Kentucky officials agreed to stop offering in-state tuition to undocumented students after the DOJ filed suit.

In March, a federal judge in Minnesota dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit there, finding that the DOJ failed to prove that the in-state tuition offering discriminated against U.S. citizens.

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