“The state was literally subsidizing illegal behavior,'' Martin said.

Although state agencies are required to report biannually how many people have been denied services under the law, calculating governments' actual cost savings is difficult.

At Arizona community colleges and universities, which report the vast majority of service denials, the cost of educating students varies widely based on class sizes, faculty experience and other factors. It's also impossible to know how many people never applied because they knew they couldn't afford out-of-state tuition.

But if all of the Maricopa County Community College District's 1,474 undocumented immigrant students took a full-time course load, they paid an additional $7.5 million as nonresident students.

The number is harder to report for the three state universities, whose reports to the Legislature don't show how many undocumented immigrants are enrolled.

Connie Anderson, who advocates for immigrants for the Valley Interfaith Project, said out-of-state tuition is prohibitively expensive for most immigrants, leaving eager high school graduates with nothing to do. Many of them were brought to Arizona as children and don't know any other home.

“We're sidelining the best of our kids and wasting human talent,'' Anderson said.

Her organization is promoting federal legislation that would grant legal residency to some people who were brought illegally to the United States as children.

Martin said the state subsidizes education because college graduates earn more money and eventually pay back the state with their higher income taxes. But undocumented immigrants cannot legally work in the United States so they can't pay back the state's investment.

“When we're talking about college students, we're not talking about children anymore,'' Martin said. “At this point, you are responsible for following the law yourself.''