SPRINGFIELD - A four-year-old law that allows children of illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition rates at Illinois public universities appears to be drawing fewer students than predicted.

A survey of several public universities found fewer than 300 students are taking advantage of the benefit this year, which is less than the more than 2,200 students who had been projected to qualify.

The issue has been the subject of lawsuits in other states, as well as a key component of immigration reform being debated in Congress. In recent weeks, it also has become a hot topic in the presidential race.

Illinois is among 10 states that have laws on the books allowing for cheaper, in-state tuition rates for students who are the children of undocumented immigrants.

In signing the measure into law in 2003, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said giving undocumented students equal footing in the education process will help more young people go on to "achieve their full potential."

The Illinois Board of Higher Education does not track the numbers, but according to a sampling of individual Illinois universities, the program doesn't appear to be attracting throngs of students.

At the University of Illinois at Chicago campus, there are 225 undocumented students paying in-state rates, compared to 49 at the U of I's Urbana-Champaign campus.

Illinois State University reported having six students this semester. Southern Illinois University has two. Western Illinois University said it had no students paying the lower in-state rates.

Eastern Illinois University and Northern Illinois University could not provide any numbers.

NIU spokeswoman Melanie Magara said administrators aren't tracking the situation but speculated that the numbers at the DeKalb school mirror those of ISU and SIU.

"I have no reason to think it would be any different here," Magara said.

The debate, meanwhile, has raged at the federal level. A package of legislation that included a mandate that all states charge in-state rates to the children of illegal immigrants has stalled in the U.S. Senate.

During a recent debate among the Republican presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney sparred over the issue. Romney contends children of undocumented aliens would get a "special deal" under the proposed federal law, while the former Arkansas governor said that children shouldn't be "punished" for illegal actions of their parents.

The Illinois law, sponsored by state Rep. Edward Acevedo and state Sen. Antonio Munoz, both Democrats from Chicago, extends in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrant students who attend Illinois high schools for at least three years and graduate from an Illinois high school.

Kurt Erickson can be reached at kurt.erickson@lee.net or 789-0865.