Enrolled Bill Summary

            Senate Bill 286 amends the Education Code to continue the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board until September 1, 2015, and to include or update across-the-board sunset provisions. The bill reduces the board from 18 to nine members.

            The bill requires a periodic rather than an annual review and revision of the five-year master plan for higher education and establishes review requirements; requires the board to provide for monitoring of the plan's implementation and identification of strategies to achieve the plan's goals; requires the board to prepare a biennial rather than an annual report to the legislature, including an assessment of the state's progress in meeting the goals and the degree to which the current higher education funding system supports the plan's implementation; and requires the board to provide in its funding policies incentives for supporting the master plan. It also requires the board to study and, not later than November 1, 2004, make recommendations for reducing administrative burdens and increasing participation in student financial aid programs to maximize the value of those programs to the state.

            The bill replaces the Joint Advisory Council with the P-16 Council, composed of the commissioners of education and higher education and the executive directors of the Texas Workforce Commission and the State Board for Educator Certification; the P-16 Council retains the same charges as its predecessor with the added duty to study and make recommendations regarding the alignment of secondary and postsecondary education curricula and testing.

            The bill requires the board to collect and make publicly available information regarding certain municipally created higher education authorities or nonprofit corporations and to administer a program to publish on the Internet performance data collected from public colleges and universities relating to the qualifications of their respective incoming freshman classes and to the institutions' efficiency in serving students as indicated on several specific performance measures.

            The bill requires the board to approve an existing common course numbering system for lower-division courses to facilitate transfer of course credit among public colleges and universities, requires each institution to use the system unless exempted by the board for good cause, and requires the board to cooperate with those institutions in any additional system development or alteration.            The bill revises eligibility criteria for assistance under several student loan repayment programs by requiring a person to have served for at least one year in the specified occupation or capacity and to be currently employed as such, and it deletes previous requirements under those programs for a service agreement that specified the terms of the assistance but provides for the provisions' continued effect until all prior agreements have been fulfilled. It also restructures the Teach for Texas financial aid program from a grant program to a loan repayment assistance program.             The bill revises the deadline for progress reports by certain institutions receiving funds under the board's advanced research and advanced technology programs, revises the reporting deadline for the respective board-appointed program review committees, and provides for the confidentiality of research project-related information submitted to the board unless it is made public by board rule.

            The bill replaces the Texas Academic Skills Program with the Success Initiative for student testing and development education to address identified skill deficiencies. The bill requires public colleges and universities to test each nonexempt entering undergraduate student to determine the student's readiness to undertake freshman-level course work, and it requires the board to designate one or more diagnostic tests for this purpose and, if practical and feasible, not later than September 1, 2005, to designate the public high school exit-level test as the primary test. It requires each institution to establish a program to advise students regarding preparation and development of the necessary skills for completing college-level work and to work individually with students who fail to meet institutional standards on the test to prepare them for freshman-level course work; it also allows the board to develop supplemental funding formulas for developmental courses. The bill requires each institution to report annually to the board on its Success Initiative's effectiveness, and it requires the board to evaluate the initiative's effectiveness on a statewide basis.

            The bill requires the board to distribute money to colleges and universities participating in the Texas Opportunity Plan Fund through the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation electronic funds transfer system, unless an institution requests another means of distributing funds. The bill restricts the board's issuance of new loans under the Federal Family Education Loan Program to borrowers who have been or will be issued a student loan under another program administered by the board, but it allows the board to service any such federally insured loans that remain outstanding. It also requires the board to establish a doctoral incentive loan repayment program for members of groups that are underrepresented in faculty and administrative positions at public and independent colleges and universities to increase their numbers on the faculty and administrations of such institutions. Program funding is to be provided through a $2 per semester credit hour set-aside from the tuition charged for doctoral degree programs other than a law or health professional degree program.

            The bill requires the board to establish a pilot project at three public junior colleges to study the feasibility of allowing junior colleges to offer bachelor's degree programs in applied science and applied technology, and it requires the board to prepare a progress report not later than January 1, 2009, and a final report with its findings and recommendations not later than January 1, 2011.

            The bill requires the governing board of a junior college district in a county or counties with a substantial and growing Mexican American population to evaluate the demand for and feasibility of establishing a Mexican American studies program or other courses in that field and allows that board to establish the program or courses with coordinating board approval if desirable or feasible.