By Pitts                                         H.B. No. 634

      75R3311 JSA-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to installment payments on a prepaid college tuition

 1-3     contract.

 1-4           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-5           SECTION 1.  Section 54.626(a), Education Code, is amended to

 1-6     read as follows:

 1-7           (a)  The board may provide for the receipt of payments under

 1-8     prepaid tuition contracts in lump sums or installment payments.  If

 1-9     the board allows payments under a contract to be made in

1-10     installments over a period longer than one year, it must provide

1-11     for those payments to be made in single annual installments in

1-12     addition to any other permitted installment plans.

1-13           SECTION 2.  (a) The Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board

1-14     shall begin offering single annual installment payment plans under

1-15     new prepaid tuition contracts as required by this Act not later

1-16     than January 1, 1998.

1-17           (b)  The board shall permit a person making payments under a

1-18     prepaid tuition contract entered into before January 1, 1998, that

1-19     provides for installment payments to be made more frequently than

1-20     once each year to convert to single annual installment payments if

1-21     the person in writing so requests before January 1, 1999. In

1-22     converting a contract to provide for annual installment payments,

1-23     the board shall adjust the amount of each payment as necessary to

1-24     comply with Section 54.620(b), Education Code, taking into account

 2-1     the different frequency with which the installment payments are to

 2-2     be made.

 2-3           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

 2-4     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-5     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-6     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-7     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

 2-8     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

 2-9     passage, and it is so enacted.