In-State tuition for illegal immigrants

I responded to Josh Huston's editorial on illegal immigrants now receiving in-state tuition in the state of California.

I have to fully agree with the point of view that this is a disaster and is completely unfair to full U.S. citizens. I feel a little on the fence about the situation due to the fact that I desire for every person to have the opportunities to educate and better themselves, but when it comes to being at the cost of my education it seems incredibly less important. The only requirement is that illegal immigrants attend a California high school for 3 years and successfully graduate? What about the rest of us who have been here our entire lives working towards our future and our college careers? This reminds me of what we just finished reading about affirmative action in chapter 5 and how it can turn into reverse discrimination or how it can prevent every day citizens from achieving their goals not based on merit, but on fairness. In my opinion merit is fair and so is becoming a full U.S. citizen before you reap the benefits of our country. I would also like to point out that in going to ACC I, an American citizen, would have to pay double or triple tuition fees if I even moved out of the district...let alone the state, but an illegal immigrant can cross our borders, spend a few years here and all of a sudden they have as equal opportunity as we do. The issue of illegal immigrants receiving this benefit may not cause big issues in most undergraduate schools, but what about higher education which is more competitive and whose schools accept fewer students? The fact that there are more people added to the competition who don't even legally have the right to be here is completely unfair to those of us that were born here and expect our government to serve us first.