Gov. Deval Patrick wants to help out college students with their in-state tuition. But more likely than not, you’re not going to be seeing any of the deals.

Patrick is trying to breathe some life back into a bill that the House of Representatives shot down last year 97-51. And if the House hadn’t, former Gov. Mitt Romney would have vetoed it even faster.

The bill has been amended by Patrick’s team to make it a bit more acceptable to the new House, but the issue of letting non-taxpaying non-citizens pay in-state prices to public state colleges is not sitting well with many.

It’s not fair, to borrow the remark from a 6-year-old in the sandbox. I can’t possibly see how this makes sense, especially amid all the immigration debate, this will only fuel that fire.

Under the bill, the children of illegal immigrants who have lived in the state for at least three years would be eligible for in-state tuition rates rather than the out-of-state tuition as is the norm presently.

This bill has been tweaked by Patrick to specifically help high achieving students in high school attend college because they would not otherwise be able to afford it. We all know the plight of paying for college, and anything to help should be welcomed with open arms. Denying anyone affordable education is never supposed to be debatable.

Bills with the same ideas as the one set to go before the House in Massachusetts are already in affect in California, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and Washington.

And joining Massachusetts are similar bills in Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Similar bills have been vetoed in Connecticut and Wisconsin. Nevada, Georgia and Texas all grant illegal immigrants varied access to certain scholarship and award programs for in state students.

Many advocates argue that the bill would only affect something like 500 children of illegal immigrants. They don’t want the mistakes of the parents to impend the achievements of the children.

But then you are looking at a possible draw-in for more illegal immigrants from neighboring states to Massachusetts – after all, Connecticut vetoed it. It also makes it look like illegal immigrants are being pardoned, and how is that fair for immigrants who came into the country the legal way? Representatives are reassuring the current in-state college students that no fully qualifying Massachusetts student would be negatively affected in their financial situation by the bill.

“These are exactly the people we need to retain – productive workers,” Shuya Ohno of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition said to The Wakefield Observer. “Certainly, the senior citizen portion of the population is growing, but the workforce is shrinking.”

So if you look over the coming years, we’re going to be in a bind. Am I the only who sees some strong ulterior motives in that statement? Now it gets to the heart of the matter, is this really about giving some hard-working students a chance, or is it about the stereotype of the immigrant worker?

Though on the flip side, there is the question of whether or not it will cost the state more to have a less qualified workforce. Knowing the unstable condition of the economy not just in Massachusetts but across the country at the moment, that question answers itself.

But there are juniors and seniors, and graduate students for that matter, who have lived in Massachusetts for three or more years. Some are registered voters in Amherst, and while these students are not “permanent” residents according to some politicians, doesn’t that put them in the same position?

Many students call their dorm or apartment home despite state citizenship. How can you tell me that these students – who spend eight to nine months out of the year, and possibly more at school – are going to have to pay more than an illegal immigrant for their education?

One year of residency in Massachusetts usually qualifies the United States citizen for in-state tuition. It’s not as if the children of illegal immigrants are being denied the chance to an education.

There are plenty of students who come from out of state with their own sets of financial woes. It isn’t just illegal immigrants who have financial hardships; it is something that does not discriminate. By all means, let’s get affordable education on the table, but can we try to somehow make the slices of the pie even?

Hannah Nelson is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].