 So with that, I think one of our last piece of business for the day is to take a look at an issue that was raised by Joyce Judy, the president of CCB with me a few days ago. And that is the refugees and asylum seekers and their how, when and how they can access CCB tuition, tuition from our state colleges, etc. And so we'll get some more background on this from Tom little from Vsac. But for now, let's just shift over to Elizabeth St. James to have a look at some language that we asked that you draft. Sure. Good afternoon. Beth St. James Office of Legislative Council. Would you like me to share my screen. Yes, please. In response to community discussion yesterday I drafted some language to get us to get you started. And the section entitled 16 that discusses determination of residency for tuition purposes for the Vermont State colleges, which includes the community college of Vermont. Section 2185. It's a very short section. You can see here, a and B were all that were there. And the Board of Trustees shall adopt policies related to residency for tuition purposes consistent with state and federal requirements. So most of the residency requirements are in Board of Trustee rules. They've already been a carve out for active duty service members who come to Vermont, who are transferred here for non educational purposes, and they can be considered a resident for in state tuition purposes. And so what I've done to start with is the same thing for, and we're going to, I think we're using the term refugee and I'm going to come back to why I said using the term in a second. So I've added subsection C. And based on committee discussion yesterday it sounds like it sounded like the committee wanted to focus on the community college of Vermont. To CCD so I've limited it here saying for determination of residency for tuition purposes for the community college of Vermont, but I will note this statute is applicable to all Vermont State colleges. So it could be limited or it could just be left broad and open. I'm just saying James I just want to stop you there for a moment if I may. So, are these things that the boards themselves could do. In other words with the military carve out. Was that a board decision or was that a legislative decision. I mean it's in law it's in state law so the car I'll go back to the sharing my screen. Yeah, I'm looking on our website center champion and I don't see this document unless I'm missing is it something that is up there or. I don't know if that has shared it with Daphne yet. I did then I'll ask Daphne Daphne if you haven't had a chance to put it up. She try refreshing I just, I see a message from Daphne to try to refresh your page. I'll try that. Thank you. And if you need me to send it again Daphne please let me know. So, it's a great question so I mean we can see that state this is current state law so the legislature added this carve out for active duty military members. It's the college that came forward and said we need this. I don't know the legislative history on this but it is state law, and it appears in I did look at the CCV Board of Trustee, the rules on this and I don't know that I'm a person to speak to that I think it would probably be better to hear from them directly. But they, they do feature. There is more of a carve out on their, in their rules for not just active duty military members there's also a carve out for veterans. And I'm again not familiar with the history behind that whether that's a separate section of state law that allows them to do that or whether that's something that they feel so it's already consistent with state and federal requirements and therefore included in their rulemaking authority. I think they would probably be the best to speak to what they feel is within their authority. Okay. So, what I've done is, is again to start with mirrored the language for the exception for active duty military members. And so it says a person who resides in Vermont meets the definition of refugee. And there is to my knowledge notes state definition of refugee this is a federal definition of the federal term. And it's found in title eight of the United States code and section one one zero one a 42. And it's a long definition I'm happy to share it if you want it upon arrival in Vermont and for the period of residency in Vermont be considered a resident for in state tuition purposes at the start of the next semester or academic period. I would say that I, there, the attorney in our in office of legislative council who handles matters related to refugees is Becky Wasserman, and I checked with her just to make sure that I had the right refugee definition. I added a little bit about the fact that when we're talking about asylum seekers or refugees, those terms can be thrown around in the public sphere, and not necessarily mean the same thing. When we get down to definition. And for example, I heard the committee, when we started talking about this bill or, you know, this concept, applying mainly to the Afghan refugees who are who are coming in and being resettled in Vermont and that's kind of what spurred this discussion. There's a possibility that they, those folks that you're talking about are not actually refugees under this definition. They're here on a humanitarian parole program, which means they don't fit under this definition. And it just gets, there are other definitions relating to non US citizens who are here for various different reasons, including asylum seekers. Depending on who the committee means to sweep into this category could really change the definitions we need to refer to, and how who falls into those definitions and if that is the committee's intent. Okay. Why don't you. So, right now refugees that are coming in from Afghanistan are referred to would you repeat that or referred to as. And this is just a tiny bit of research, not an authority on this, but my understanding is they're coming to us under a humanitarian parole, or probation program, and may not qualify under the federal definition of refugee. I would be happy to do more research on it or perhaps Becky I don't want to volunteer her, but as the attorney who works in this area of the law, she may be able to speak far more eloquently to it than I am, but I do think it's worth noting from the get go that we as lay people are referring to a community with one term doesn't mean it meets the federal definition, or the state definition in this case it would be federal. So, it would be important to really think about who are the people you're trying to capture here, and so that we can, if this is something that needs to be done in state law, make sure that we get those definitions right. It's a great point. It's a really great point I appreciate it. And, and I think, as we were going to hopefully hear from Joyce Judy tomorrow, and I'll ask Daphne to reach out to state colleges and UVM to understand both the process that they would recommend as you mentioned, how to do this work and then who they in their minds also are trying to capture with this. Senator Tarantini. This question is for you, I guess Senator Campion so just, just for my own understanding, you're proposing that, for example, the Afghan refugees relocating here, they wouldn't have to wait the one year period to be considered in state or out of state for for different tuition pricing purposes correct. And that's the basically the conversation I had with Joyce Judy as I recall it. And I do think I would also add that as we talk about this, I think it's also good for us all to just revisit this conversation in general so the answer is yes, but for example, I mean, why are we making anybody wait, you know, to be honest, I mean, yeah, it's just my only follow up to that is, you know, it's kind of, hey, if you're moving here. I don't want you going, at least in my community over to Hudson Valley, you know, for something I want you right here, go to CCV. I don't want you know so I think it raises that question as well. If I can follow up that was exactly my point that was exactly my point right now is where, as we know we have a population problem with the workforce problem and everything else why if I move here from New Hampshire with my family for example why wouldn't I just on day one be able to take advantage of the better rates, rather than going to a school in New York or New Hampshire wherever else just do it for everyone. Yeah. Yeah. So, as usual, you and I are on the same page. And so yeah, now I think it's a good point and there are some and this is what we can pull apart with CCV is. I know that there already are some agreements with bordering towns. So for example, in my area, you know, there's, I don't know if it's miles or specific time out towns that can already benefit from a tuition reduction to CCV. That might persuade them, you know, to head east rather than west, which, you know, is the biggest competitor Hudson Valley Community College so. So yeah I think we put that on the table as well why not open this up to everybody. Other center lines. I was just going to agree. And we'll probably hear get pushed back on that but I remember your 100 years ago when I moved it back into Vermont. Yeah. And I could get a job first teaching college before I could go to complete get start my PhD so fascinating discrimination. Yeah, no it's interesting. Yes, and her personally. One thing that we heard in committee a couple years ago when we were talking about early college I think it was a dual enrollment in those students that wanted to go out of state we kind of got into this issue of residency a little bit. I remember there was a concern about the students that had a parent in Vermont declaring residency. And maybe, maybe we don't care about that if somebody's living in a border state but going to school here within state tuition and climbing residency because they have a relative that has a home here so I don't know how, how residency is defined. I don't know if that's the definition of that or if that's just in the, in the rules, the school has to develop. But it's something that might want to look into. Yeah, that'd be great. Miss St. James good look into that a little bit for us. And we'll ask people. Okay. Mr little thanks for being with us. And thanks for listening to the conversation. I want to introduce yourself. I'll just mention and give us your comments, you know it's, we started this conversation a little bit after a conversation with Joyce Judy around making this kind of change for refugees and silence seekers you just heard the comments from Elizabeth St. James. And now our idea of, you know, is this is a time to open this door, a bit more. I suspect with some students, you know, financial aid if you're paying that out of state tuition if you've lived here nine months and applying for financial aid you're getting into a tuition reduction program that may or may not bring you down to the in state tuition all those kinds of things so with that I'll just pass it over to you for the next 10 minutes and get your thoughts. So general, general counsel at Vermont Student Assistance Corporation good afternoon. And I convey the apologies of both Marilyn Cargill and Scott Giles who are otherwise book to this afternoon. Interestingly, oh, as, as the general counsel at VSEC there have been times over the last 17 or 18 years when I have been asked by VSEC to look at, I guess what we call residency appeals. These are students generally who have been determined by VSEC to not be eligible for the various VSEC grant programs that are restricted to Vermont resident students. So there is an internal to VSEC appeal process. One of the rules is that you can't move to Vermont for the purpose of going to college here and establish residency at the same time. There aren't very many appeals generally speaking I think that rule is pretty well understood but at times there are special cases or weird variations. The VSEC rule and the application or interpretation of it has always pretty much aligned with that at the University of Vermont and the state colleges I have a little more experience with that of the university than I do with the state colleges but when you think about the tuition differential between in-state and out-of-state tuition. Those institutions have been very careful about residency because the business models for them depend to a significant extent on charging more money to non-resident students. If they've spied a slippery slope coming at them that would make it harder for them to maintain that distinction they would be concerned about the economics of it. And as I indicated the VSEC statutes make it clear that the VSEC grant programs are for Vermont resident students and you can't move here in August and start going to UVM or the state colleges in September and expect to get in-state tuition. Sorry to interrupt. I'm just thinking of myself and I'll just say it aloud. I might be able to see where UVM's coming from with their admissions numbers but with the state colleges this could be the out-of-the-box kind of thinking that they might need help them. I mean to be known as, jeez, move to Vermont and immediately get in-state tuition. I don't know. I'm just kind of throwing it out there. That's a good point and I am not familiar with, you know, I throw the, toss the word business model around a bit loosely there. The, I ran it, we ran it, VSEC ran into something like this years ago with the Somali refugee population that had come into the greater Burlington area, Burlington, Winooski, South Burlington. And we're looking at least some of them and I think we need to keep in mind that if we have 300 or 400 Afghanistan refugees, they're not all going to be applying to go to the state colleges at the same time. Presumably a limited number of them but we ran into some of the same problem and this was a, there was a two or three groups of Chittenden County nonprofits and faith organizations that were trying to help the Somali refugees with getting jobs and getting education, and we weren't able to help them because of the statutory issue about residency. We did, I did find through someone at VSEC a, there's an associate, a national association of student financial aid administrators. There's a national association as you know for everything. And I can send this to you, I just came across it, it's a tip sheet for financial aid administrators working with refugee and asylum students, the term that this one page document uses is actually a Siley students. This is focused on the, the free federal application for student financial assistance the FAFSA application that is for federal financial aid, and there is a, again it's a one page summary tip sheet so it doesn't go into a deep dive but it does give us guidance about which non citizen statuses are eligible for federal financial aid. That includes us permanent residents with a permanent resident card conditional permanent residents, and then there's a regulatory reference for that. There are eligible non citizens with an arrival dash departure record, I guess is referred to as an I 94 from the Department of Homeland Security, showing any one of the following designations. Asylum granted indefinite parole humanitarian parole parole or Cuban patient entrant. It also covers citizens of the Republic of Palau Republic of the Marshall Islands or the Federated States of Micronesia, which suggests to me and this, this National Association of Student Financial Aid administrator traders is a very reliable professional group, and they, they, they don't put stuff out that isn't something you can generally rely on it suggests to me that that. The federal financial aid eligibility may go beyond that statute federal statutory definition that St. James mentioned to the committee in title aid of the United United States code. More more research would need to be done by that but it suggests that perhaps the Department of Homeland Security or perhaps the US Department of Education has has adopted rules or regulations that go beyond that statutory definition of refugee. We can we can look into that as well. So we haven't VSEC hasn't had, but about but about a half a day to think about this, Mr Chair. I can go into more detail about the VSEC statutes how those are structured. If you would like, but the only other thing I can mention that maybe a slight analogy is that there is a there's a Vermont National Guard program that is a refundable or forgivable interest free loan that functions as a scholarship if you are joined the guard and complete all of your guard commitments for basic training and years of service. You can get a very significant benefit towards tuition. That is not restricted to Vermont resident members of the Vermont Guard. And that was in particular because the guard recruits and has members of the Vermont Guard who live in New York, New Hampshire, and probably a few other states. So I don't, that's not directly on point but it's might be good for the committee to know. I think it makes sense now to pause to get questions and Elizabeth St. James I think you there are a number of things that would be great for you to bring back to us as outlined by Mr little and others. And we'll also hear from CCV hopefully tomorrow, but for now do I see any questions. So either Mr little or Miss St. James, Senator Hooker. One of the things I'd like to know from Joyce Judy is the number of the percentage of non residents that go to CCV. Yeah, you know, what are we looking at as far as what is that what does that look like presently. Anything else right now for either Miss St James or Mr little