The citizenship of 7,600 UA students still needs to be verified in order for the UA to comply with Proposition 300 by Friday.

Students have been verified as citizens or legally able to work in the U.S. through the I-9 form, and those who have filed a verified Free Application for Federal Student Aid also meet the verification requirements of the law, said Magdalen Vargas, special assistant to the registrar.

The I-9 form is used to prove that an employee is authorized to work and cannot be filed without providing documentation establishing that an employee is in the U.S. legally, said Roberto Verdugo, senior budget analyst for systems control.

The number of students who will actually be affected by the law will be unknown until all the documents and verification have been processed, Vargas said.

Students who are returning after the spring semester will need to make sure they are verified before Friday, Vargas said.

Documents will still be accepted after that, but the registrar’s office will need to start verifying incoming freshmen. Vargas said she also hopes that any discrepancies will be corrected before tuition bills are sent out in July.

The costs of implementation are still being determined, and part of the cost is related to the computer systems, said Gary Wagner, assistant vice president of the registrar’s office.

“”We are continuing to make modifications to our several computer systems beyond those that have already been made so that we can more efficiently record verification and use the verification data in tuition calculation, financial aid communications and billing,”” Wagner said in an e-mail.

The goal is to configure the systems to minimize student concerns and confusion about residency and aid statutes, Wagner said.

“”It is actually rather complex,”” he said in the e-mail.

Staff in charge of accepting documents creates an extra cost in the verification process, but Wagner said no new staff has been hired, and Vargas was transferred from another position in enrollment management to coordinate the efforts to comply with the law.

Fred Boice, president-elect of the Arizona Board of Regents, said he does not know if the regents will be updated as to the status of the verification process or its costs.

The first report to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee regarding implementation of the proposition is due June 30, according to an opinion written by Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard to Tom Horne, superintendent of public instruction.

If students have questions regarding Proposition 300 or if they need to provide documentation, they can e-mail reghelp@email.arizona.edu or check the registrar’s Web site at www.registrar.arizona.edu/residency/prop300.