By:  Schechter                                         H.B. No. 543
       73R1586 SOS-D
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to tuition and fee exemptions at institutions of higher
    1-3  education and public technical institutes for certain students in
    1-4  foster or other residential care.
    1-5        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-6        SECTION 1.  Subchapter D, Chapter 54, Education Code, is
    1-7  amended by adding Section 54.211 to read as follows:
    1-8        Sec. 54.211.  EXEMPTIONS FOR STUDENTS IN FOSTER OR
    1-9  RESIDENTIAL CARE.  A student is exempt from the payment of tuition
   1-10  and fees authorized in this chapter if the student:
   1-11              (1)  was in foster care or other residential care under
   1-12  the conservatorship of the Texas Department of Human Services on or
   1-13  after the day preceding the student's 18th birthday; and
   1-14              (2)  is enrolled in an institution of higher education.
   1-15        SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with tuition and fees
   1-16  collected for the fall semester of 1993.
   1-17        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-18  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-19  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-20  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-21  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   1-22  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   1-23  passage, and it is so enacted.