Economic conditions have lead more and more students to seek college aid packages.

In light of escalating tuition and budget challenges for Americans, citizen activists in Texas are now pushing to revoke laws addressing favorable tuition rates and aid eligibility for illegal immigrants and foreign scholars.

Brittney Martin of Reporting Texas and the Dallas Morning News has the details:

Tea Party conservatives will push next year to rescind a state law that allows illegal immigrants to pay state-resident tuition rates, and when they do, a little-known fact could be at the center of the debate: Students who aren’t citizens are also eligible for state financial aid.

Nearly 2,500 students who are in the country illegally received more than $9.5 million in state higher education grants in fiscal year 2010, the most recent figures available from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. There were 16,476 illegal-immigrant students paying resident tuition rates, meaning more than 1 in 7 get state financial aid as well.

The law allowing both the tuition and the aid has been on the books for a decade, mostly without controversy. But it became a focal point of Gov. Rick Perry’s opponents in the Republican presidential contest last year, and with conservatives rallying to limit benefits for illegal immigrants, some GOP lawmakers will seek to change the law when the Legislature meets starting in January.

“For every dollar that we give to someone who is here illegally, that’s a dollar less that we’re giving to someone who’s here legally,” said Rep. Bill Zedler, an Arlington Republican who says he intends to offer legislation to revoke the benefit.

Supporters of the law, which Perry signed in 2001 after it overwhelmingly passed the House and Senate, say they oppose punishing students who have grown up in Texas for the actions of their parents, who brought them to the U.S. illegally as young children. Perry staunchly defends the law in the face of conservative criticism.

Proponents note that the benefit is relatively small. But as tuition rises and financial aid dollars are cut, the competition for grants grows.

Martin indicated that Texas is one of three states that allow students in the country illegally to receive state financial aid, and one of 12 that charges them state-resident tuition.

A 2010 study by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute estimated that about 100,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S. hold college degrees.

Tom Melecki, director of student financial services at UT-Austin, said 306 illegal-immigrant there received $1.22 million in state grants in the 2011-12 school year. That’s 3.6 percent of the $34.11 million in total state grants awarded to UT students.