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DowNut
08-11-2012, 01:51 PM
http://www.badgeabuse.com/files/cache/cc542cde6c19e15a2b44348d4637201f.JPG State Must Use Residency of Student, not Parents, to Determine Financial Aid Eligibility NEWARK -- The New Jersey Appellate Division today ruled today (http://www.aclu-nj.org/files/8413/4444/3205/2012_08_08_a4827-10.pdf) in favor of a young American citizen denied state financial aid last year based on the immigration status of her mother rather than her own residency. The court’s ruling stated the student, A.Z., was in fact eligible for a Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) from the state and that the state’s Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (HESSA) misapplied the law when it denied her application.
The ACLU-NJ and the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic filed an appeal last year on behalf of A.Z. (http://www.badgeabuse.com/legaldocket/a.z.-v.-h.e.s.a.a./), who was a high school senior when HESAA denied her TAG grant application because her “parents are not legal New Jersey residents.”
“This is an important ruling for children of immigrants throughout New Jersey. For the purpose of state financial aid, American citizens cannot be punished for the immigration status of their parents." said Ronald K. Chen of Rutgers Law School-Newark's Constitutional Litigation Clinic, who argued the case on behalf of A.Z. “HESAA clearly misapplied the law and the court admonished the agency in response.”
A.Z. met the two requirements to apply for state aid from HESAA: demonstration of financial need and New Jersey residency. A.Z. was born in the United States and has lived in New Jersey with her mother, a single parent, since 1997. According to the Appellate Division, HESAA violated state statute by considering her “residency” to be that of her mother’s country of origin, rather than New Jersey.
“We conclude that irrebuttably assigning to a dependent student the domicile of his or her parent alters the plain meaning of the statute and is contrary to the underlying legislative intent,” the court stated. The court took the unusual step of voiding an agency regulation as beyond the agency’s authority. The court declared, “To the extent the agency's 2005 regulation irrebuttably established that a dependent student's legal residence or domicile is that of his or her parents, it is void.”
In addition, the state argued that the beneficiary of the tuition aid would be A.Z.’s mother, not A.Z. The court stated HESAA’s argument runs afoul of the meaning of the TAG statute, which expressly provides for the award of the financial aid to the student.
“Not every parent’s support invariably extends to higher education,” the ruling stated. “The TAG grant is a need-based grant, and, in the case of a dependent student, is determined in light of the limited ability to pay of the dependent student’s parents.”
As a result of her denied financial aid application, A.Z. took on a full-time job to support herself and attended community college rather than one of the several four-year colleges to which she was admitted.
“A hardworking U.S.-born citizen at the top of her class should be the future of the American dream, not have her dreams stunted by discrimination,” said ACLU-NJ Policy Counsel Alexander Shalom. “This doesn’t erase the hardships A.Z. has endured for the past year, but it does guarantee that students will not have to watch their horizons narrow before their eyes.”

Related Content

AZ: Decision (http://www.aclu-nj.org/files/8413/4444/3205/2012_08_08_a4827-10.pdf)
AZ v. HESAA (http://www.badgeabuse.com/legaldocket/a.z.-v.-h.e.s.a.a./)
Video: A Student's Right to Financial Aid (http://www.badgeabuse.com/yourrights/multimedia/a-students-right-to-financial-aid/)




More... (http://www.aclu-nj.org/news/2012/08/08/court-rules-that-state-agency)