Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly on Monday vetoed a bill eliminating in-state tuition at higher education institutions for students who don’t live in the country legally.
Backed by Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach, the bill came out of the Legislature without enough votes for a veto override.
The Senate voted 22-18 to approve the bill that included the in-state tuition measure as part of a larger bill banning immigrants living in the country illegally from receiving most state or local benefits. The House passed the legislation 78-46.
The Senate is five votes short of an override. Nine Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the bill when it was considered by the Senate on March 24.
The House is eight votes short of an override, with a similar number of House Republicans joining in opposition to the bill.
If the Legislature overrides the veto and the law is enacted, Kansas would be the fourth state to repeal the in-state tuition law since 2025, according to the National Immigration Law Center.
“America’s immigration system is broken, but this is not the way to fix it,” Kelly said in a statement.
“This bill targets Kansans who were brought to the United States as children,” she said.
“To punish these kids for decisions their parents made years ago is not only cruel, but also not in the best interest of the state,” she said.
“Kansas needs these young people to be educated and trained so they can enter our workforce and contribute to our state’s economy.”
The Kansas law has been in place since 1994.
The bill “must be enacted if Kansas is to be a state that respects the rule of law,” Kobach said in a statement Monday night.
“Kansas has been giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens, in direct violation of federal law,” he said.
“Doing so also treats illegal aliens better than United States citizens from neighboring states. SB254 fixes that. I urge Republicans in the Legislature to override the governor’s veto.”
Kobach has indicated that President Donald Trump’s administration would challenge the Kansas in-state tuition law in court like it already has done in seven other states if Kansas didn’t act.
However, a federal judge upheld a similar law in Minnesota late last month.
U.S. District Judge 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.
The Minnesota case was decided in a separate federal circuit outside of Kansas and is not binding here but could provide a guidance in other cases.
Separately, a federal judge in Kentucky last week signed a consent decree between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education saying that state’s in-state tuition law conflicts with federal statutes.
In that decree, the judge declared the Kentucky law violated the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution and was invalid.
At that time, then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media that the U.S. Department of Justice attorneys had “just secured a crucial win for America-first policies: Kentucky can no longer give in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens.
“Americans will NOT be treated like second-class citizens in their own country,” she wrote.
The cases are relevant in Kansas because Kobach has determined the Kansas law to be illegal and has indicated that the federal government would challenge the Kansas law like it has in other states.
Chuck Weber, executive director of the Kansas Catholic Conference, promised to work to sustain the governor’s veto of the bill.
“This is a small, but important victory for young undocumented migrants from Kansas who have pledged to find a path to legal status and even American citizenship,” Weber said in an email.
House Speaker Dan Hawkins said the governor’s veto is sending the wrong message.
“This bill was about a simple principle: public benefits funded by Kansas taxpayers should be reserved for those here legally,” he said in a statement.
“Kansans are working hard, paying their taxes, and expecting their government to prioritize them, not forcing them to subsidize handouts to those here illegally,” he said.
“That’s not controversial, it’s common sense.
“At a time when families are focused on rising costs, the governor chose to veto a measure that protects taxpayer resources and restores basic standards.”
Last year, the U.S. Justice Department filed lawsuits against seven states — Texas, Kentucky, Illinois, Oklahoma, Minnesota, California and Virginia — with in-state tuition policies similar to Kansas’.
The Florida Legislature repealed that state’s law when the legislators passed a broad immigration law in 2025 that limited waivers for the in-state tuition program to only “citizens of the United States” or those “lawfully present in the United States.”
A federal judge 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.
Texas was the first state to permit in-state tuition benefits to undocumented students.
Last August, 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.
Kobach has predicted the Trump administration would eventually sue Kansas if the Legislature didn’t pass the legislation.
“Kansas legislators would do well to bring Kansas into compliance with the law rather than being sued by the federal government,” Kobach said a couple weeks ago.
The Kansas in-state tuition program is open to someone who attended an accredited Kansas high school for three years or more, graduated from an accredited Kansas high school or earned a general equivalency diploma and sought to legalize their immigration status.
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 2024, 102 were enrolled at Johnson County Community College, 46 attended Wichita State University, 26 attended Kansas City, Kansas Community College, 24 attended the WSU Campus of Applied Sciences and Technology, 21 attended Butler Community College and 17 attended Fort Hays State.
