Indeed, public institutions of learning have different tuition rates depending on a student's residency status. Rates for out of county/state individuals can be 50% more (or even higher) than local residents, so there aren't too many instances of non-residents attending community college; there aren't really any benefits to graduating from one CC versus another, so why pay more to get a degree that is indistinguishable from a cheaper one? They're all the same as far as any employers or society are concerned, there's no prestige or social status associated with graduating from CC, so there isn't much of an incentive for fraud. You maybe could argue that it is a viable vector for election fraud if they could be used as IDs, but I think the rise in non-resident enrollment around elections would be evidence of this, yet this phenomenon isn't observed. And even if that were an issue, Republican-controlled legislatures that just passed sweeping election reforms could have corrected it, but they chose not to.
Private institutions have a flat tuition rate (although if you are an international student they will verify that you have the financial capability to pay full tuition, since as a non-resident you wouldn't qualify for federal aid, and their tuition rates are set anticipating that you will qualify for federal aid). When there is actual money involved, you can be damn sure that processes are in place to verify you are paying the correct rate. As always when real dollars are at stake, the process is vetted, inspected, and verified at multiple levels. The proof of residence for my local community college was not dissimilar from the DMV. People want to get paid what they're owed.
But again, if there are any concerns about the stringency of this process, they could have been resolved via recently enacted legislation. But they weren't, and that may have been an intentional omission.
Look, I'll agree that student IDs are not up to par with other forms of IDs in terms of the information printed on the actual card, and that maybe some of the processes should be standardized across the state. Just because my local CC is good with these things and has sensible protocols doesn't mean all CCs strive to achieve that standard. There are a lot of CC and state schools out there. But the fact that an entire party has made securing the vote their raison d'être, yet steadfastly refuses to consider students valid voting constituents is strikingly indicative of a bad faith effort.
Private institutions have a flat tuition rate (although if you are an international student they will verify that you have the financial capability to pay full tuition, since as a non-resident you wouldn't qualify for federal aid, and their tuition rates are set anticipating that you will qualify for federal aid). When there is actual money involved, you can be damn sure that processes are in place to verify you are paying the correct rate. As always when real dollars are at stake, the process is vetted, inspected, and verified at multiple levels. The proof of residence for my local community college was not dissimilar from the DMV. People want to get paid what they're owed.
But again, if there are any concerns about the stringency of this process, they could have been resolved via recently enacted legislation. But they weren't, and that may have been an intentional omission.
Look, I'll agree that student IDs are not up to par with other forms of IDs in terms of the information printed on the actual card, and that maybe some of the processes should be standardized across the state. Just because my local CC is good with these things and has sensible protocols doesn't mean all CCs strive to achieve that standard. There are a lot of CC and state schools out there. But the fact that an entire party has made securing the vote their raison d'être, yet steadfastly refuses to consider students valid voting constituents is strikingly indicative of a bad faith effort.