LEGISLATIVE BUDGET BOARD
                          Austin, Texas

                           FISCAL NOTE
                       74th Regular Session

                          April 4, 1995



 TO:     Honorable Irma Rangel, Chair           IN RE:  House Bill No. 31
         Committee on Higher Education                  By: Kubiak
         House of Representatives
         Austin, Texas







FROM: John Keel, Director

In response to your request for a Fiscal Note on House Bill No.
31 (Relating to the calculation of the grade point average of a
student who repeats a course at an institution of higher
education) this office has determined the following:

The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal
basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions
of the bill.

The bill would specify procedures regarding repeated courses and
the calculation of grade point averages (GPA).  The bill would
allow undergraduate students who receive a letter grade of C, D,
or F in an undergraduate course to repeat the same course at the
same institution once.  The second grade, if superior, would be
used to calculate the student's GPA.  The bill would limit the
number of semester credit hours which could be changed in this
manner to 15 hours in one semester. 

The bill would allow a resident student in a work-study program,
or who is a recipient of a competitive scholarship or educational
grant, to pay the same tuition for a repeated course as the rate
that was in effect when the course was first taken.  Resident
students who do not qualify for this tuition policy would pay
nonresident tuition for repeated courses.  Nonresident students
not enrolled in a work-study program or recipients of a
competitive scholarship or educational grant would pay 120
percent of nonresident tuition for repeated courses.

It is anticipated that implementation would require extensive    




computer programming at institutions of higher education.  
However, since the GPA policies specified would not be
implemented until Fall 1996, it is expected that computer
programming changes could be made during the normal course of
software maintenance and upgrade with no additional costs to the
institutions.  The estimates of general revenue-related costs
below assume 10 percent of undergraduate students would choose to
repeat a course.  Repeated courses would represent an increase in
general revenue formula funding two years after the original
course was failed, projected to be FY1998 for purposes of this
fiscal note.  Some of the anticipated increase in formula funding
would be offset by increased tuition revenue.  The cost estimates
below include projected increased tuition revenues.










The probable fiscal implication of implementing the provisions of
the bill during each of the first  five years following passage
is estimated as follows:



            Fiscal  Probable Cost Out 
             Year      of  General    
                     Revenue Fund 001 
                                      
          1996                      $0
          1997                       0
                                      
          1998               2,629,540
                                      
          1999               2,629,145
          2000               2,628,750
                                      
                                      
                                      

       Similar annual fiscal implications would continue as long as the
provisions of the bill are in effect.


Source:   Higher Education Coordinating Board
          LBB Staff: JK, MK, WRR