WASHINGTON, November 6 (Aalimi Nation) – The United States Department of Justice has sued Pennsylvania State University, arguing that its tuition policy for undocumented students unlawfully favours them over American citizens from other states. The Penn State lawsuit was filed on Thursday, November 5, and is the department's 27th such case.
What the Penn State lawsuit alleges
The 14-page complaint challenges a university policy under which undocumented students, with or without protection under the DACA programme, can pay in-state tuition if they meet residency standards. Those standards include attending an accredited Pennsylvania high school for at least four years and graduating from it, or earning a state GED certificate.
The department says this treatment breaks a federal law that bars postsecondary benefits based on in-state residency for people without lawful status unless the same benefits are open to all US citizens and nationals, regardless of where they live. It also argues the policy violates the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution, which makes federal law prevail over conflicting state or institutional rules. The complaint describes the denial of the same rate to out-of-state citizens as "blatant unequal treatment."
The department is asking a federal district judge to declare the policy unconstitutional and to bar the university from enforcing it. It also wants the university prevented from adopting similar rules in future.
What officials said
Brett Shumate, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Division, said: "Congress made a deliberate policy choice that states and their public institutions may not grant tuition benefits to illegal aliens unless those same benefits are made to all U.S. citizens." He said the university had ignored that mandate. Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. said Congress had made clear that states cannot offer reduced tuition to people in the country illegally that is not available to all Americans.
A Penn State spokesperson said the university was aware of the complaint and was reviewing it.
Wider campaign and unresolved questions
The Penn State suit follows 26 earlier actions that the department has filed against states and universities over in-state tuition since President Donald Trump's executive orders on immigration in early 2025. Cases in Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Illinois and Kansas have ended in outcomes favourable to the federal government, the department said. A federal judge dismissed the department's case against Minnesota, finding that the department had misread the law.
Some states and institutions that are defending such policies argue that they have the right to set their own education rules. Supporters of in-state rates say they keep local graduates in the workforce and that many undocumented students were brought to the country as children.
Several details remain unclear. The lawsuit does not say how many students currently use the policy, and the university has not stated how many would be affected if a court struck it down. Undocumented students are also ineligible for federal student aid. The assigned judge and a timetable for hearings have not been made public.
What happens next
Penn State must now respond to the complaint in court. The outcome may depend on whether the judge follows the earlier rulings for the federal government or the Minnesota decision that went the other way.
