When Erskine Bowles justified his announcement that the University of North Carolina system will study the feasibility of granting in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, he said "We can't stick our heads in the sand. These people are here and we have to deal with them."

Amen, Erskine. However, the "people" Bowles and the UNC Tomorrow Commission need to "deal with" aren't the illegals but the good citizens of North Carolina. They've made it abundantly clear that they oppose footing the higher education bill for undocumented immigrants, even at out-of state tuition rates.

Can't say I blame them. No one supports comprehensive immigration reform -- including a guest worker program -- more passionately than I, and I have the scars to prove it.

Most of those wounds were received when I've argued that illegal immigrants are here because Americans now have the luxury to pass on low-skill, manual labor-intensive jobs. This isn't a matter of laziness, but of wealth and educational progress.

Taxpayers aren't shelling out billions of dollars each year with the goal of educating the next generation of dishwashers, fast-food servers and landscape laborers. Allowing willing immigrants to do this work at relatively low wages has been a boon for the American economy, worker and consumer.

This benefit isn't pain free, however. Low-skill immigrant labor does suppress wages for U.S. workers without high school diplomas. But there's a solution to that problem. More Americans need to graduate.

When they do, higher wages will be just one of the many benefits and opportunities they'll be able to reap.

The Supreme Court has ruled that some benefits aren't limited to U.S citizens. The justices decreed that all children who are here, regardless of their legal status, are entitled to a free K-12 education. But that's where it stops. Taxpayers are under no legal obligation to subsidize college degrees for illegal aliens.

Regardless, advocates for affordable tuition for illegal immigrants claim that not to do so is shortsighted. They argue that college-educated illegals are bound to yield greater economic benefits to the state than their lower-skilled brethren.

Although intuitively and morally appealing, that argument has a fundamental flaw. While many Americans would rather be struck by lightning than take a job cleaning a public toilet, they're more than willing to buckle down to earn a position that requires certification, an associate's, bachelor's or postgraduate degree. Show me a working, college-educated illegal alien, and chances are I can show you a displaced American worker.

Of course, that presumes a degreed illegal immigrant can get work suitable to his or her education. News accounts originating from Texas, the first of 10 states to offer illegal immigrants in-state tuition, show that they can't.

Employers aren't hiring them, and for good reason. It's still against federal law to knowingly hire an undocumented worker. Even if an employer could, it doesn't make sense to invest in a high-value employee who could easily be deported after a discreetly placed call from a disgruntled co-worker. Nor does it make sense to hire illegal aliens while more and more states are passing laws that stiffen sanctions against employers who do.

Limiting the educational opportunities of illegal immigrant students -- for many, the U.S. is the only country they've known -- is notoriously unfair. Righting that injustice by offering in-state tuition is tempting. But the individual good such an act accomplishes will produce a greater societal harm, by cheapening the value of citizenship and the rule of law. Such an undermining could become a considerable obstacle to a greater goal -- successful immigration reform.

No matter reform's final form, putting an end to illegal immigration is ultimately dependent on the undocumented aliens already here voluntarily coming out of the shadows, and immigrants wanting to come here taking the legal channels provided. The only way that will ever happen is for the benefits of legal status and U.S. citizenship to far outweigh the consequences of remaining illegal. Offering a college education to the undocumented greatly reduces the incentive to shun illegal status, become a citizen and comply with the law.

That's a reality most North Carolinians already know and one UNC President Bowles must learn to "deal with."

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