Definition
In legal contexts, "students" refers to persons enrolled in an educational institution—whether a primary school, secondary school, college, university, or vocational program—as a defined status that carries specific legal rights, disabilities, and consequences. The term appears across several distinct legal domains:
1. Constitutional and administrative law: Students in public educational institutions are rights-bearing individuals subject to reduced but not eliminated constitutional protections, particularly regarding speech, religion, search and seizure, and due process.
2. Immigration law: "Student" is a recognized nonimmigrant visa category (principally the F-1 and M-1 classifications under federal law), designating foreign nationals admitted for the specific purpose of academic or vocational study, with restrictions on residence, employment, and duration of stay.
3. Voting and domicile law: Historically, and in many jurisdictions continuing today, student status has been treated as a complicating factor in determining legal domicile and voter residence—the core concern addressed in historical legal dictionaries.
4. Tax law: Students may qualify for specific deductions, credits, and exclusions based on their enrollment status, including deductions for student loan interest.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Plural of student; persons who study at a school or other educational institution.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A person engaged in study; one who is devoted to learning.
The ordinary sense of the word is straightforward and presents no particular gap from legal usage. The legal significance of the term, however, lies not in its definition but in the legal consequences that attach to student status—consequences that do not arise in ordinary usage. A person is colloquially a "student" simply by attending school; legally, that status triggers specific rights, disabilities, and classifications that vary considerably by context.
Common Confusion
Students and domicile: The most persistent historical confusion concerns whether attending college in a location establishes legal domicile there for purposes of voting or other legal rights. The fact of studying in a place is not, by itself, sufficient to establish domicile. Residence for the purpose of attending an educational institution has traditionally been treated as a temporary, instrumentally motivated presence—not the fixed and permanent home required for domicile. This distinction has been contested and has shifted somewhat in modern law, particularly after the Voting Rights Act and subsequent federal guidance affirming students' right to register at their college address. Researchers should not assume that pre-twentieth-century authorities on student residence remain fully controlling.
Why It Matters in Research
The legal significance of "students" is almost entirely contextual—meaning the term itself is unremarkable, but the legal regime attached to student status in any given domain is complex, has evolved significantly, and varies by jurisdiction.
In constitutional research, the student speech and rights area underwent transformative development in the latter half of the twentieth century. Pre-1969 sources (predating Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District) reflect a fundamentally different framework in which students had minimal constitutional protection within school settings. Researchers using historical sources should be alert to this doctrinal rupture.
In domicile and voting research, the old rule—reflected in Bouvier—was that student presence did not establish residence for voting purposes. Modern federal and state law has substantially modified this, though the analysis remains jurisdiction-specific and fact-sensitive. The Pennsylvania and New York authorities cited in Bouvier, and the Massachusetts authority cited contra, illustrate that this was already contested in the nineteenth century.
In immigration research, the student visa category has its own regulatory infrastructure. The F-1 and M-1 categories impose ongoing compliance requirements on both students and their sponsoring institutions. Research in this area should begin with current administrative regulations and agency guidance, not historical dictionaries.
In tax research, student status activates a range of code provisions—loan interest deductions, education credits, dependency rules—that are technical and change with legislative cycles.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's treatment of "students" is narrow but instructive. The entire entry concerns the voting-and-domicile problem: students living in a place solely to attend college do not acquire the kind of residence that entitles them to vote there. Bouvier cites Pennsylvania and New York authority in support of this majority position, while acknowledging a Massachusetts case going the other way. Bouvier cross-references DOMICIL and CHANCELLOR'S COURTS IN THE TWO UNIVERSITIES, the latter being an English-law entry concerning the special jurisdictional courts historically attached to Oxford and Cambridge—an institution with no American parallel and of primarily historical interest.
The Bouvier entry does not address constitutional rights of students, immigration status, tax treatment, or any of the other legal domains in which student status now carries significant consequence. This reflects both the era of the dictionary and the relative underdevelopment of those legal areas at the time of compilation. Researchers should treat Bouvier's entry as a starting point only for the domicile-and-voting question, and as inapplicable to most modern legal questions involving students.
Jurisdictional Note
Student domicile for voting purposes is now governed by a combination of federal constitutional principles and state election law, and outcomes can vary significantly. Some states facilitate student voter registration at campus addresses; others impose stricter inquiries into intent to remain. Immigration classifications for students are exclusively federal. Constitutional protections for students in public schools are governed by federal constitutional law, though states may provide additional protections.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Student Speech, Religion, and Constitutional Rights in Public Schools (The Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia)
Nonimmigrant Visas -- Temporary Workers, Students, and Visitors (The Law Mind Administrative Law & Government Encyclopedia)
Deductions -- Student Loan Interest (The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia)