DENVER — When Mike Johnston became principal of Thornton's Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in 2005, he learned many of his students couldn't claim in-state tuition if they enrolled in college after graduation because they were living in the country without proper immigration documentation.
He recalled in a interview that his distraught and dispirited students were questioning the point of all the work they were putting into high school.
The 48-year-old Johnston, Denver's newly elected mayor, says that's what planted the seeds that have driven him to a career in public service, including multiple runs for office.
After working on Barack Obama's first presidential campaign as an advisor on education issues, Johnston was appointed by a vacancy committee to fill a state Senate seat in Northeast Denver. At the State Capitol, he worked with other lawmakers to introduced legislation to allow immigrant students who lacked sufficient documentation to qualify for in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities.
The proposal, dubbed the ASSET Bill — short for Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow — would fail to gain traction over several sessions before finally passing with bipartisan support in 2013, making Colorado the 14th state to grant in-state tuition to students who aren’t in the country legally.
>Read the full article at Denver Gazette.
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