DOJ sues Hawaii, D.C., Arkansas and Utah over in-state tuition rules

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday filed its final four lawsuits in a yearlong campaign to knock out state and local tuition benefits for undocumented students, targeting Hawaii, the District of Columbia, Arkansas and Utah. The new complaints ask federal courts to block in-state tuition rules and, in at least some of the cases, related aid programs that public colleges are already using for fall 2026 billing and advising. No judge has ruled in these four cases yet, but the filings immediately raise questions for registrars, admissions offices and financial-aid teams about what they would change if courts move quickly. The department announced the filings Sept. 10.

The federal government is relying on two provisions of immigration law. 8 U.S.C. § 1623 bars postsecondary benefits for people not lawfully present in the U.S. when those benefits are provided on the basis of state residence unless out-of-state U.S. citizens can get the same benefit, and 8 U.S.C. § 1621(d) says a state may extend otherwise barred public benefits only through a post-1996 state law that affirmatively provides for that eligibility. In each complaint, DOJ is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief rather than an immediate administrative directive to colleges, which means the legal risk is real now even though the tuition rules themselves do not automatically switch off on filing day.

DOJ said the four cases bring its total to 25 and complete its challenge to every state or jurisdiction with these policies. The department also highlighted a Sept. 9 ruling in Kansas that blocked a similar law there, underscoring that these disputes are no longer hypothetical for campus operators. Earlier this year, Texas and Nebraska moved into injunctions or proposed consent decrees with the federal government, and in July a federal court in Illinois sided with DOJ against that state’s tuition and aid policies. DOJ’s own recent releases show how fast some of these cases have moved once filed. (justice.gov)

Four jurisdictions, four different operating models

The cases share a legal theory, but the policies on the ground are not identical. In Hawaii, DOJ is challenging Hawaii Administrative Rule 20-4-9(g), which the complaint says extends resident-tuition eligibility to "bona fide resident aliens." The University of Hawaiʻi’s own residency guidance says that, as a general rule, a student must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident for one year to qualify as a resident for tuition purposes, while also warning that residency rules can change through legislation or administrative action. Honolulu Civil Beat reported that the Board of Regents adopted a policy in 2013 allowing some undocumented students who attended U.S. high schools and lived in Hawaiʻi long enough to receive in-state rates.

In the District, the complaint targets D.C. Municipal Regulations title 8, § B722.2, the rule governing preferential tuition. The University of the District of Columbia currently tells applicants that most students are presumed out of state until they prove they qualify for D.C. or metro-area tuition, and it required residency paperwork for fall 2026 by Sept. 2. UDC’s published undergraduate rates show why the litigation matters operationally: for 12 credits, the university lists resident tuition and fees at $4,318 and nonresident tuition and fees at $8,590, a gap of $4,272 in a single semester. UDC’s admissions pages and tuition tables make clear that residency classification is already tied to both tuition assessment and financial-aid administration.

Arkansas is a different kind of case. Rather than a blanket residency rule, DOJ is attacking Act 844 of 2019 and its implementing policy. The statute lets state-supported colleges classify certain students as in-state for tuition if they meet specified immigration and schooling conditions, including three years of residence in Arkansas and an Arkansas high school diploma or equivalency. The Arkansas Division of Higher Education’s policy makes the benefit discretionary by institution: colleges “wishing to provide” it must adopt their own policy and submit it to the state. That design matters because, if courts intervene, some Arkansas campuses may have adopted affected rules while others may not have.

Utah’s complaint reaches both tuition and scholarship systems. DOJ says Utah Code § 53H-11-203 and Utah Board of Higher Education policy R513 extend resident tuition to qualifying undocumented students, and it separately challenges state scholarship programs including the Utah Promise Program and Opportunity Scholarship. Utah’s tuition policy traces back to H.B. 144, enacted in 2002. The University of Utah still maintains a resource page for undocumented students explaining that qualifying students can attend on an HB 144 tuition waiver, and its 2026-27 cost-of-attendance page says students who meet HB 144 criteria are assigned a resident cost of attendance. That page lists undergraduate tuition and fees of $10,480 for residents and $32,932 for nonresidents for the academic year, illustrating how a lawsuit over residency classification can also reshape aid packaging and net-price counseling. (justice.gov)

What campus teams have to plan for now

For higher-ed operators, the practical problem is less about the ultimate constitutional theory than about timing. Residency determinations are not isolated legal labels; they are embedded in admissions forms, tuition tables, student-information systems, scholarship rules, cost-of-attendance budgets and frontline advising scripts. UDC’s fall residency deadline has already passed, Utah’s aid office is already assigning resident cost-of-attendance treatment to some HB 144 students, and Hawaii’s campuses are already applying the University of Hawaiʻi residency framework. If a court issues an injunction or a state moves to settle, colleges may have to decide whether changes apply prospectively, midyear or only to new students — questions the complaints do not answer. (udc.edu)

That is why the recent pace of litigation matters. Texas and Nebraska did not spend semesters in limbo before agreeing to court orders, and Kansas went from complaint to a federal ruling in a matter of months. Illinois also shows that aid programs can rise or fall with tuition rules when states tie student eligibility to the same residency logic. For legal, registrar and aid offices, the lesson is that contingency planning now means more than drafting a statement. It means identifying which student populations are coded under challenged categories, which institutional scholarships depend on residency status, and what the campus would need to rebill or repackage if a court order lands midterm. (justice.gov)

There is also a second-order communication risk. Because Arkansas and Utah use more specific eligibility pathways than Hawaii and D.C., and because Utah’s case explicitly names scholarship programs, the student-facing message cannot be one generic sentence about “in-state tuition.” Some students may face questions about tuition only; others could face both tuition and state-aid eligibility questions. And because the complaints are newly filed, student-support staff need to avoid implying either that benefits are already gone or that the cases are merely symbolic. Both would be misleading. As of Friday, what changed is the legal exposure, not the posted tuition bill already sitting in a student account. (justice.gov)

The next development to watch is not just whether the four jurisdictions defend the cases on the merits. It is whether DOJ quickly seeks preliminary relief, or whether any state follows Texas, Nebraska or Kansas into a negotiated order that changes campus policy before a full trial. For public colleges in Hawaii, D.C., Arkansas and Utah, the operational clock is already running. (justice.gov)