City University Of New York

After completing a freshman seminar about immigration in New York, Anita Sonawane, a brainy undergraduate who happens to be a New York immigrant, had a transformative aha moment. It was something the professor said. "Oh, come on, Anita, you know you're not going to be a doctor," Jeff Maskovsky, an urban studies professor at Queens College, told her, hoping to challenge the idea that the only way to succeed in America was to practice medicine.

In a city that traditionally has welcomed immigrants, the news seemed like a slap in the face: With virtually no advance warning, trustees for the City University of New York decided to increase the annual tuition for undocumented students by nearly 113%, ordering them to pay the same rates as out-of-state residents. The increase affected some 2,600 students -- most of them low-income Mexicans.