By Junell                                        H.B. No. 767

      75R3535 CAG-D                           

                                A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

 1-1                                   AN ACT

 1-2     relating to an exemption from tuition and fees at a public

 1-3     institution of higher education for certain students in foster or

 1-4     other residential care.

 1-5           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

 1-6           SECTION 1.  Section 54.211, Education Code, is amended to

 1-7     read as follows:

 1-8           Sec. 54.211.  EXEMPTIONS FOR STUDENTS IN FOSTER OR OTHER

 1-9     RESIDENTIAL CARE.  A student is exempt from the payment of tuition

1-10     and fees authorized in this chapter if the student:

1-11                 (1)  was in foster care or other residential care under

1-12     the conservatorship of the Department of Protective and Regulatory

1-13     Services:

1-14                       (A)  when the student graduated from high school

1-15     or received the equivalent of a high school diploma; or

1-16                       (B)  on or after the day preceding the student's

1-17     18th birthday; and

1-18                 (2)  enrolls in an institution of higher education as

1-19     an undergraduate student not later than the third anniversary of

1-20     the date the student was discharged from the foster or other

1-21     residential care, the date the student graduated from high school,

1-22     or the date the student received the equivalent of a high school

1-23     diploma, whichever date is earliest.

1-24           SECTION 2.  This Act applies beginning with the 1997 fall

 2-1     semester.

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

 2-3     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an

 2-4     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the

 2-5     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several

 2-6     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,

 2-7     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its

 2-8     passage, and it is so enacted.