SRC-HRD S.B. 678 75(R)   BILL ANALYSIS


Senate Research Center   S.B. 678
By: Lindsay
Finance
3-16-97
As Filed


DIGEST 

Currently, Texas law permits youth in the Department of Protection and
Regulatory Services (DPRS) foster care to obtain free tuition at state
operated colleges, universities, and vocation schools when they become 18
years of age or older.   

In 1995-96, 217 youths took advantages of this program which may provide
an incentive for many children in foster to complete high school and enter
college. 

Currently, state law requires that former foster care youths be 18 years
or older in order to utilize the college tuition waiver.  DPRS estimates
that this affects about 25 youths per year who graduate high school before
their 18th birthday and are ready to attend college.  DPRS estimates that
the ineligible children stay in the state's conservatorship while waiting
to reach age 18 to take advantage of the waiver.  Meanwhile, the state
continues to pay for the foster care of these children.  This bill would
extend the current tuition waiver to youths of any age who graduate from
high school or receive a high school equivalency degree while under DPRS
conservatorship.  

PURPOSE

As proposed, S.B. 678 provides an exemption of tuition and fees for higher
education to a student who was in foster care at the time the student
graduated from high school or received the equivalent of a high school
diploma.   

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

This bill does not grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state
officer, institution, or agency. 

SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS

SECTION 1. Amends Section 54.211, Education Code, as follows:

Sec. 54.211.  EXEMPTIONS FOR STUDENTS IN FOSTER OR OTHER RESIDENTIAL CARE.
Provides that a student is exempt from the payment of tuition and fees
authorized in this chapter if the student was in foster care or other
residential care under the conservatorship of the Department of Protective
and Regulatory Services when the student graduated from high school or
received the equivalent of a high school diploma, regardless of the
students age, and enrolls in an institution of higher education as an
undergraduate student not later than the third anniversary of the date the
student was discharged from the foster or other residential care. 

SECTION 2. Provides that this Act takes effect with the tuition and fees
charged for the 1997 fall semester. 

SECTION 3. Emergency clause.