SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Democratic state lawmakers want to give illegal immigrant students in Illinois access to state financial aid, and some are concerned about how the shift would increase competition for limited funds.

“The Democrat-backed measure would let undocumented Illinois students who meet certain requirements compete for state-funded financial aid and scholarship opportunities at public, four-year universities,” Progress Illinois reports.

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Students who are in the country illegally currently cannot secure state or federal financial aid in Illinois.

The Illinois Senate Education Committee approved the “Student Access Bill” Tuesday in a party-line vote, with Republican Sen. Kyle McCarter speaking out in opposition.

The bill would not require additional funding, but McCarter said that allowing illegal immigrant students into the system would increase competition for “scarce resources.”

The News-Gazette documented an exchange during the committee meeting between McCarter and the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Iris Martinez, a Chicago Democrat.

“There is going to be competition and there are going to be winners and losers, right?” McCarter said … “Some are going to get scholarships and some are not.”

“That’s going on right now, too,” Martinez said.

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“But there is going to be more of that because you’re putting more people into the pool that are going to wait to qualify for a limited amount of funds, especially in this state, the situation we’re at where there hasn’t even been an appropriation for these schools,” McCarter said.

Advocates of the plan testified that 20 states currently offer aid to illegal immigrants, and about 1,500 in Illinois would flood into the system under the legislation.

Progress Illinois reports an original version of the bill first introduced in the state House would have allowed illegal immigrants to compete for a need-based Monetary Award Program aimed at low-income students, but that provision is absent in the recently approved senate bill.

The committee-approved senate bill’s biggest backers include University of Illinois President Timothy Killeen and former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar, Peoria Public Radio reports.

Edgar called the legislation “politically smart and morally right” in a November Chicago Sun-Times editorial.

The discussion comes amid a long-running standoff between the Democrat-controlled General Assembly and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner over the state budget. The University of Illinois currently helps coordinate private scholarship programs that help dozens of illegal immigrant students attend college, but Democratic lawmakers and university officials allege it’s not enough.

“Right now, we are only able to give gift funds, gifts that are privately given to the institution through the (UI) Foundation. This is a very, very small number of scholarships,” Josephine Volpe, director of the UI-Chicago advising center, told committee members.

Sen. Heather Steans, another Chicago Democrat, pointed out that another private scholarship program funded 26 scholarships for illegal immigrant students in its first year, but said “that’s just a drop in the bucket,” the News-Gazette reports.

“We need to provide access to this entire group of young adults who … we want to keep here,” she said.