SEATTLE — The Justice Department sued Washington state on Thursday, asking a federal court to block state laws that let undocumented immigrants pay in-state college tuition and receive state grants and loans that are not offered to U.S. citizens who live in other states.
“Over 30 years ago, Congress made clear that States cannot put illegal aliens before our Nation’s own citizens,” Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. wrote in a statement. “By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona are pushing citizens to the side and ignoring federal law. No more”
The civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court of Western Washington in Seattle, is one of four lawsuits announced against the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington. The DOJ said the filings bring to 21 the number of states it has sued over similar policies.
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, who leads the department’s Civil Division, wrote, “This is a simple matter of federal law: colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens.”
The defendants are the state of Washington; the governing boards of the University of Washington, Washington State University, Evergreen State College, and Central, Eastern and Western Washington universities; the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges; and the Washington Student Achievement Council, which administers state financial aid.
The DOJ points to 8 U.S.C. § 1623(a), a 1996 federal statute that says an immigrant who is not lawfully present “shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State … for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit … without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.”
Washington’s residency rule, RCW 28B.15.012(2)(e) and dating to a 2003 law, treats as a resident any person who earned a high school diploma or equivalent, lived in Washington for at least one year primarily for reasons other than college, and signed an affidavit promising to seek lawful permanent residence and citizenship when eligible. That definition also governs eligibility for the Washington College Grant and the Undocumented Student Support Loan Program.
The Justice Department’s lawsuit calls Washington’s residency policy for in-state tuition benefits “blatant unequal treatment” and says federal law blocks it under the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. The complaint points to recent rulings against similar laws in Illinois, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.
The price gap at public campuses is quite significant. For the 2026-27 school year, University of Washington undergraduates pay about $13,400 in resident tuition and fees compared with about $44,600 for nonresidents, a discount of roughly $31,200, or about 70%. Washington State University’s (Pullman) published undergraduate tuition is $6,349 for residents and $15,185 for nonresidents, a cut of about $8,836, or 58%. Western Washington University lists 8,808 versus $27,717. Evergreen State College lists $8,643 versus $32,805.
Across those four-year campuses, the resident rate is typically about 60% to 74% lower than the nonresident rate. Community-college discounts are smaller for out-of-state U.S. citizens, who often pay a modest waiver rate, but much larger versus the international rate of about $350 a credit compared with about $136 for residents.
The Washington College Grant is the state’s main need-based aid program and is available to qualifying residents, including students who apply through the Washington Application for State Financial Aid (WASFA) because they cannot file a federal FAFSA—primarily undocumented students, some DACA recipients, and some mixed-status families. State records reviewed by the Lynnwood Times show that the Washington College Grant paid $468.2 million to 97,269 students in 2023-24 and $541.8 million to 106,001 students in 2024-25. Final 2025-26 expenditure totals have not been published but the Legislature appropriated about $570 million for that year.
The Student Achievement Council reported 8,410 WASFA applications in 2023-24 and 3,067 WASFA filers who received a Washington College Grant that year. The state does not publish a dollar total by immigration status type, however, using the 2023-24 program-wide average award of about $4,800, those 3,067 grants (3% of total awarded grants) would represent a rough estimate of $15 million. For 2024-25, the council reported 9,360 WASFA applications but has yet to release the number of grant awards and dollar figure.
The Undocumented Student Support Loan Program was created by Senate Bill 6561 (Primary sponsor: was Sen. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds) in 2020 and took effect July 1, 2021. Statute capped the state’s matching contribution at $2 million per biennium and required private donations. In 2025, lawmakers eliminated $792,000 for the program and according to Student Achievement Council materials, no new loans were being issued.
The DOJ is asking the court to declare the Washington state’s tuition, grant and loan statutes unconstitutional and to permanently bar the defendants (schools listed above and Washington Student Achievement Council) from enforcing RCW 28B.15.012(2)(e), 28B.92.200(5)(c) and 28B.96, or similar successor laws. The complaint also requests the court to award litigation expenses incurred by the federal government in its suit.
Author: Mario Lotmore
