In Arkansas, colleges required to inquire about students' immigration status.(money tree)

LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- All Arkansas two-year and four-year colleges and universities must ask potential students if they are legal residents of the country, the director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education said.

A letter by Jim Purcell, sent to all colleges, came after a day after Gov. Mike Beebe's office acknowledged it did not know that admission procedures of the state's two largest colleges could give illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates.

Purcell's letter warned schools that any illegal immigrants admitted to the college wouldn't count toward its enrollment number, which the state uses to determine how much funding the institutions receive.

"If your institution does in fact grant in-state tuition benefits to any student not legally present in the United States, …