Remember the “mean girl” in school—the bully who thought she was better than everyone else when everyone knew she didn’t have many friends because she was mean, cruel and selfish?
Every time I hear Gov. Jan Brewer speak—either in person or print—that mean girl comes dancing before my eyes. Because that’s how she acts. And that’s why the kind of friends she DOES have, aren’t the kind most of us would want.
The latest evidence is her opposition to young undocumented students who have a chance at an education, thanks to President Obama. His new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program does exactly what its name says: It gives a break to those who were brought here illegally when they were just children and now have grown up as Americans and want to go to college. The deferral program says these kids now cannot be charged the enormously more expensive “out of state” tuition, and can go to state colleges as “in state” students.
Here’s the difference: In-state studentsin Arizona pay $76 per credit hour; out of state students pay $317 per credit hour. It’s simple math to see why the out-of-state tuition rate is unaffordable.
In 2007, in its first streak of anti-immigrant hysteria, Arizona voters said these undocumented kids HAD to pay out-of-state tuition. I’ve always thought it was obnoxious that some state voters would think the way to handle the “border issue” was to throw kids out of college or prevent them from going there in the first place.
To my way of thinking, there must be a special place somewhere nasty for folks who are so vicious. Just saying.
The Maricopa County Community College System has already announced it’s letting these kids pay in-state tuition because of the president’s program, and the Arizona Board of Regents is considering the plan. But Mean Girl Governor Brewer thinks the President’s temporary reprieve is wrong and she doesn’t want these kids getting in-state tuition.
We should all tell her how horribly wrong she is. Again.
Let me just say this: The days of the Tea Party folks like Mean Girl Governor are numbered, as America wises up to their ways. We are not a nation of such bullies, and that they temporarily seemed to gain a foothold is just an abberation in American politics.
So someday soon when we tell Mean Girl Governor to go away and not bother us anymore, I’ll be really happy. As will all those kids who just want to get an education.