Attending public Highschool

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

I remember reading on here that if a teenager wanted to use a student visa (F1) to attend highschool it has to be a private, fee-paying school, not a public, free highschool. Can anyone point me to the USCIS policy on that? Having a discussion with a friend who does not believe this to be true, as there are illegals and exchange students at his daughter's school.

[payxibka 10,045]

I remember reading on here that if a teenager wanted to use a student visa (F1) to attend highschool it has to be a private, fee-paying school, not a public, free highschool. Can anyone point me to the USCIS policy on that? Having a discussion with a friend who does not believe this to be true, as there are illegals and exchange students at his daughter's school.

You might find the Department of State to be a better source of info as it is they who issue the visa and not the USCIS.

My son began public school when he arrived (K2). The school district did not even ask/verify his status... they just enrolled him. This may not be what all school districts do but it is what they did. With this type of process, it is certainly understandable how "illegals" get enrolled, at least in this school district.

An exchange student would most likely be a J-1

Edited July 21, 2010 by payxibka

[LiLMermaid 2]

Some states enroll anybody, they don't ask you to prove legal status in the US all they require is usually a resident requirement which can be a utility bill etc. This is not true for all states but a lot of them. It doesn't make one legal though...its still against USCIS regulations. Once you reach college level and possibly even high school level this becomes an issue though. Illegals end up not being able to attend college or get a drivers license as a matter of fact. Here's the page that describes the F-1 visa and its rules which includes that they cannot attend a free public high school. Actually that is one of the questions on one of the billion forms we've had to do during the K-1 process. "Have you ever attend a pubic high school while in the US on F-1 visa status" then it went on to list an 'after' date which was the year the law came into effect. 1996 I think it was.

[Penguin_ie 5,993]

Thanks for the link, LilMermaid (nice icon btw). According to that, attending a public elementary/ primary school is not allowed, but post primary/ highschool is, with restrictions:

"Secondary school attendance is limited to twelve months. F-1 secondary school students are required to pay the school the full cost of education by repaying the school system for the full, unsubsidized, per capita cost of providing the education to him or her... Costs normally range between $3000 and $10,000. "

Anyways, I got my answer, thanks all!

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

The reason you can't attend a public high school is that it is funded by tax money and loosely falls into the accepting government aid category. If you pay the taxpayers back you can attend but then you are looking at close to private school tuition so why not opt for the better education.