Enrolled Bill Summary

            Senate Bill 1907 amends several Education Code provisions relating to college tuition charges and state funding for higher education. Under current higher education funding formulas developed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, institutions receive some of their state funds on the basis of student enrollment at various levels and in different academic programs. Senate Bill 1907 amends the Education Code to exclude from those funding formulas students who have taken 170 or more undergraduate semester credit hours paying tuition at in-state rates, with some exceptions. The act allows colleges and universities to charge resident undergraduate students tuition at rates higher than the in-state tuition rate, but not to exceed nonresident tuition rates, for courses beyond the applicable 170-hour limit. Senate Bill 1907 also entitles resident students who graduate from a public college or university with no more than six credit hours beyond the minimum required for their degree programs to tuition rebates of up to $1,000.

            Senate Bill 1907 also raises the tuition rate at public law schools from $75 to $80 per hour for resident students and makes changes relating to tuition for nonresident students. It allows a public college or university governing board to waive certain fees for students enrolled solely in distance learning or other off-campus courses and who cannot use the activity, service, or facility on which the fee is based if the waiver does not affect the institution's ability to provide that activity, service, or facility or to meet related debt service obligations.

            The act reclassifies building use fees as tuition; allows public college or university governing boards to levy such tuition charges, in addition to the tuition authorized by law, at rates not to exceed the tuition rates specified by law; and designates revenue derived from these tuition charges as institutional funds rather than "educational and general funds."

            It redesignates as tuition those student activity, service, or facility use fees, similar to building use fees, that are charged on the basis of a student's semester course load and authorizes an institution's governing board to spend the revenue derived from such charges in the same manner and for the same purposes as it may spend tuition revenue, including pledging such revenue to secure bonds. It also sets the maximum amount of certain fixed fees charged students at The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas at San Antonio.