(Updated to include comments from the Kansas attorney general and the ACLU as well as the U.S. attorney for Kansas and the governor)
A federal judge has permanently blocked Kansas from enforcing a 2004 state law that provides in-state tuition at higher education institutions for students who don’t live in the country legally.
U.S. District Judge Holly Teeter ruled on Wednesday that state law is pre-empted by federal statutes because it confers a postsecondary education benefit on an unlawfully present alien based on a state residency without making the same benefit available to U.S. citizens and nationals regardless of their residence.
“The central problem here is that there are United States citizens and nationals who pay full nonresident tuition when an unlawfully present alien is eligible to pay a lower rate on the basis of residence,” Teeter wrote in a 12-page opinion.
“Stated differently, a United States citizen who is not a fellow, not in the military, and not covered by a reciprocity agreement…still pays full nonresident tuition while an unlawfully present alien who attended and graduated from a Kansas high school… pays the resident tuition rate,” Teeter wrote.
That, she ruled, is what is prohibited by federal law.
She approved the consent judgment that Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach entered into with the Justice Department declaring the state’s in-state tuition law invalid and bars the state from enforcing the law.
Before Teeter handed down her decision, 20 states provided in-state tuition to the states’ undocumented students.
“Today, Kansas can no longer discriminate against Americans in favor of illegal aliens when it comes to tuition rates,” said Ryan Kriegshauser, the top federal prosecutor in Kansas.
“No longer will illegal aliens enjoy the benefit of lower in-state tuition in Kansas,” Kriegshauser said.
“We’re a nation of laws,” he said. “It’s unjust to force American citizens to pay much higher tuition prices because they are from another state, meanwhile, allowing illegal aliens to pay a lower rate.
It is unclear just how many students will be affected by the court decision.
There were 310 students – 0.2% of the total student population – enrolled in state universities, community colleges and technical colleges who received in-state tuition in the program as of the fall of 2024, according to the most recent state data available.
The Board of Regents said there was no more recent information because the agency no longer collects that data.
Most of the students -180 – were enrolled in community colleges. Another 106 were enrolled at public universities, and 24 attended technical schools.
In ruling against the state’s federal in-state tuition law, Teeter also ruled against requests by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and a group of Kansas students without lawful immigration status to intervene in the case.
She ruled their motions were futile and moot.
“For years, Kansas universities have been violating federal law by giving in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens, while nonresident US citizens have to pay much more in tuition,” Kobach said in a statement.
“The governor tried to intervene in this case, because she wanted to continue giving in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens,” he said.
“With this decision, the court rejected her illogical arguments, and once again, US citizens will be treated better than illegal aliens by Kansas universities.”
The governor said that repealing the in-state tuition law does nothing to solve the country’s immigration problems.
“The use of federal government resources to target Kansans, brought to the United States through no will of their own and who only seek to be productive members of society, does nothing to solve any of the fundamental immigration issues we face as a country,” Kelly said.
“These efforts hamper young Kansans’ ability to gain the necessary education and training required to be valuable members of our workforce and contribute to our economy,” she said in a statement.
Supporters of the law said the court decision means that Kansas students who previously qualified for regular tuition will see higher tuition. However, with some bills coming due next week, they said it is unknown if the higher rates will be in place for the fall semester.
“This is a disappointing denial of the rights of those most impacted by the current administration’s cruel crusade against students in Kansas to participate in a lawsuit that will directly impact their future,” said Jessica Swonger, staff attorney for the ACLU of Kansas.
“The court has allowed the Department of Justice, in collusion with Attorney General Kobach, to slam the door on hardworking Kansas students, even though Kansans have long supported providing all children in our state the opportunity to learn.”
Teeter noted that there are other similar cases winding their way through the courts that have led to similar outcomes.
“These cases examine the statutes of their own states, which do not mirror Kansas’s statute. But much of the analysis is helpful though not binding,” she wrote.
A federal judge in June 2025 halted the 2001 Texas law signed by former Republican Gov. Rick Perry that gave college students without legal residency access to in-state tuition.
On that same day, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a joint motion along with the Trump administration to end the law for in-state tuition for immigrants not living in the country legally.
In August 2025, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond filed a joint motion with the U.S. Department of Justice to end a state law giving in-state tuition to immigrants who live in the country illegally.
Last March, a federal judge in Kentucky approved a consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education that rescinded a regulation that provided in-state tuition for students living in the country illegally.
The judge declared the Kentucky regulation invalid under the supremacy clause of the constitution and blocked the Council on Postsecondary Education from applying the in-state tuition rates as called for under the regulation.
And in June, a federal judge struck down a Nebraska law allowing certain undocumented students to receive in-state tuition.
In seeking to intervene in the case, Kelly pointed to a decision from Minnesota where a federal judge – a graduate of Topeka High School – ruled in favor of the Minnesota tuition program.
Katherine Menendez ruled that the in-state tuition program in Minnesota wasn’t preempted by a 1996 federal law prohibiting states from providing immigrants not lawfully in the United States with any postsecondary education benefit that is denied to U.S. citizens.
But Teeter said the Minnesota law was different and “largely irrelevant” to the issue before the court in Kansas.
“Ultimately, like the other cases, the Kansas statute rises and falls on its own language,” she wrote.
Teeter said the state law is pre-empted by federal law if Kansas makes an unlawfully present alien eligible for a postsecondary education benefit on the basis of residence within Kansas if the same benefit is not available to U.S citizens or nationals eligible for same benefit.
In June, the federal government filed a lawsuit against the state of Kansas, arguing that federal law prohibited “illegal aliens” from being eligible for in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state United States citizens.
State law extends eligibility for in-state tuition benefits at Kansas postsecondary educational institutions to “illegal aliens,” while United States citizens from other states must pay higher tuition rates, the lawsuit said.
Last legislative session, Kansas lawmakers tried to pass a bill that would have eliminated in-state tuition at higher education institutions for students who don’t live in the country legally.
It was part of a larger bill banning immigrants living in the country illegally from receiving most state or local benefits.
The bill passed 22-18 in the Senate and 78-46 in the House.
As much as he tried, Kobach couldn’t get lawmakers to override the governor’s veto of the bill.
On the last day of the session, Kobach met in a closed door-session with Senate Republicans to discuss how he believes that federal law requires the state to end the in-state tuition program.
Nevertheless, the Legislature didn’t try to override the veto, given that it was five votes short in the Senate and six short in the House. The veto override had to start in the Senate.
Kobach had cautioned lawmakers that the Trump administration could bring a challenge to the 1994 law like it had in several other states last year.
Last February, Kobach issued an opinion declaring that the state’s program providing tuition for immigrant students who live in the state illegally violates federal law.
“For more than 20 years, Kansas has been violating federal law with impunity,” Kobach said in a statement at the time.
“Now, the Trump Department of Justice is cracking down on states that have been violating that specific law banning in-state tuition for illegal aliens.
He said states have already been sued, and the federal government has already prevailed in two of them.
“Kansas legislators would do well to bring Kansas into compliance with the law rather than being sued by the federal government,” Kobach said.
