1-1     By:  Pitts, Kamel (Senate Sponsor - Ratliff)           H.B. No. 634

 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House March 20, 1997;

 1-3     March 24, 1997, read first time and referred to Committee on

 1-4     Finance; April 25, 1997, reported favorably by the following vote:

 1-5     Yeas 13, Nays 0; April 25, 1997, sent to printer.)

 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-7                                   AN ACT

 1-8     relating to installment payments on a prepaid college tuition

 1-9     contract.

1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

1-11           SECTION 1.  Section 54.626(a), Education Code, is amended to

1-12     read as follows:

1-13           (a)  The board may provide for the receipt of payments under

1-14     prepaid tuition contracts in lump sums or installment payments.  If

1-15     the board allows payments under a contract to be made in

1-16     installments over a period longer than one year, it must provide

1-17     for those payments to be made in single annual installments in

1-18     addition to any other permitted installment plans.

1-19           SECTION 2.  (a)  The Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board

1-20     shall begin offering single annual installment payment plans under

1-21     new prepaid tuition contracts as required by this Act not later

1-22     than January 1, 1998.

1-23           (b)  The board shall permit a person making payments under a

1-24     prepaid tuition contract entered into before January 1, 1998, that

1-25     provides for installment payments to be made more frequently than

1-26     once each year to convert to single annual installment payments if

1-27     the person in writing so requests before January 1, 1999.  In

1-28     converting a contract to provide for annual installment payments,

1-29     the board shall adjust the amount of each payment as necessary to

1-30     comply with Section 54.620(b), Education Code, taking into account

1-31     the different frequency with which the installment payments are to

1-32     be made.

1-33           SECTION 3.  The importance of this legislation and the

1-34     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

1-35     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

1-36     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

1-37     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

1-38     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

1-39     passage, and it is so enacted.

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