By:  Barrientos                                       S.B. No. 1321
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
                                        AN ACT
    1-1  relating to the admission and enrollment of certain students in
    1-2  public institutions of higher education.
    1-3        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-4        SECTION 1.  Subchapter Z, Chapter 51, Education Code, is
    1-5  amended by adding Section 51.929 to read as follows:
    1-6        Sec. 51.929.  RIGHT TO AN ACADEMIC FRESH START.  (a)  This
    1-7  section applies to any public institution of higher education as
    1-8  defined in Section 61.003 of this code.
    1-9        (b)  Unless otherwise prohibited by law, a resident of this
   1-10  state is entitled to apply for admission to and enroll as an
   1-11  undergraduate student in any public institution of higher education
   1-12  under this section.
   1-13        (c)  If an applicant elects to seek admission under this
   1-14  section, a public institution of higher education, in considering
   1-15  the applicant for admission, shall not consider academic course
   1-16  credits or grades earned by the applicant 10 or more years prior to
   1-17  the starting date of the semester in which the applicant seeks to
   1-18  enroll.  An applicant who makes the election to apply under this
   1-19  section and is admitted as a student may not receive any course
   1-20  credit for courses undertaken prior to enrollment under this
   1-21  section.
   1-22        (d)  If a student who enrolls under this section completes a
   1-23  prescribed course of study and earns a baccalaureate degree applies
    2-1  for admission to a postgraduate or professional program offered by
    2-2  a public institution of higher education, the institution, in
    2-3  considering the applicant for admission into the postgraduate or
    2-4  professional program, shall consider only the grade point average
    2-5  of the applicant established by the course work completed after
    2-6  enrollment under this section, along with any other criteria the
    2-7  institution uses in evaluating  applicants for admission into the
    2-8  postgraduate or professional program.
    2-9        SECTION 2.  Section 51.929, Education Code, as added by this
   2-10  Act, applies beginning with the fall semester in 1993.
   2-11        SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-12  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-13  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-14  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-15  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
   2-16  and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
   2-17  passage, and it is so enacted.