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Senate Bill 1272 |
Senate Author: Eltife |
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Effective: 5-19-11 |
House Sponsor: Lavender |
Under previous law, a resident of a neighboring state who enrolled in a public upper-level institution of higher education located in a county adjacent to the nonresident student's home state was exempt from the requirement to pay the nonresident tuition fee prescribed for nonresident students and instead was allowed to pay in-state tuition and fees. When that legislation was enacted, Texas A&M University—Texarkana was the only public upper-level institution to which that law applied. Since then, however, the legislature authorized the university to offer lower division courses, which the university began offering in the fall of 2010, making the nonresident tuition exemption no longer applicable to otherwise eligible nonresident students at the university. Senate Bill 1272 amends the Education Code to update the nonresident tuition fee exemption at a public upper-level institution to reflect the downward expansion at Texas A&M University—Texarkana. The bill requires the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, in the formula applicable to Texas A&M University—Texarkana for funding instruction and operations, to include any semester credit hours taught through distance education to students enrolled at that university who reside in another state and pay tuition at the rate charged to Texas residents and reside in a county in the other state that is contiguous to the county in which the university is located.