Undocumented students who graduated from Olathe-area high schools and planned to attend Kansas public universities at in-state tuition rates lost that option Sept. 10.

U.S. District Judge Holly Teeter issued a permanent injunction striking down a 2004 Kansas law that let certain immigrant students pay in-state tuition at public colleges. The ruling in U.S. v. Kansas takes effect immediately, though how individual campuses will implement it remains unclear, according to the Kansas Reflector.

At the University of Kansas, in-state undergraduates pay $394.80 per credit hour for the 2026-2027 year. Out-of-state students pay $1,059.30, according to KU's financial aid office. At Kansas State University, the gap is wider: $13,132 in estimated tuition and fees for Kansas residents versus $31,446 for non-residents, according to K-State's financial assistance office.

The struck-down law, KSA 76-731a, required students to attend an accredited Kansas high school for at least three years, graduate or earn a GED, and file an affidavit stating they had applied or would apply to legalize their immigration status. Between 2010 and 2021, at least 5,140 undocumented immigrants enrolled at Kansas colleges under the law, according to the DOJ's June complaint, as reported by KCTV5.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Kansas in June, arguing the statute violated the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. That federal law bars states from offering in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants unless the same benefit is available to all U.S. citizens regardless of where they live.

Teeter, a Trump appointee, sided with the DOJ. "The central problem here is that there are United States citizens and nationals who pay full nonresident tuition when an unlawfully present alien is eligible to pay a lower rate on the basis of residence," she wrote in the decision.

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, collaborated with the DOJ on the challenge and jointly proposed a consent judgment blocking the law. Kobach did not defend the statute.

Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, tried to intervene in the lawsuit and seek its dismissal. The judge denied her motion. Kelly said in a statement that "the use of federal government resources to target Kansans, brought to the United States through no will of their own and who only seek to be productive members of society, does nothing to solve any of the fundamental immigration issues we face as a country."

During the 2026 legislative session, the Kansas House and Senate passed Senate Bill 254 to bar people without authorization from receiving state and local public benefits, including in-state tuition. Kelly vetoed the bill, and the Republican-controlled Legislature did not assemble the two-thirds majority needed to override.

Jessica Swonger, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Kansas, said in a statement that the ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) had filed a motion in July to intervene on behalf of affected students. The court denied that motion too.

Kansas is one of 17 states the DOJ has sued over similar tuition laws since President Trump returned to office. Courts have already struck down the laws in Texas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Illinois, according to the Kansas Reflector.

No appeal has been announced. It remains unclear when Kansas campuses will begin charging affected students out-of-state rates.