1-1     By:  Cuellar (Senate Sponsor - Zaffirini)             H.B. No. 2555
 1-2           (In the Senate - Received from the House April 23, 1999;
 1-3     April 26, 1999, read first time and referred to Committee on
 1-4     Education; May 6, 1999, reported favorably by the following vote:
 1-5     Yeas 7, Nays 0; May 6, 1999, sent to printer.)
 1-6                            A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
 1-7                                   AN ACT
 1-8     relating to prepaid tuition for graduate and professional degree
 1-9     programs at public institutions of higher education.
1-10           BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
1-11           SECTION 1.  Subchapter F, Chapter 54, Education Code, is
1-12     amended by adding Section 54.6245 to read as follows:
1-13           Sec. 54.6245.  GRADUATE AND PROFESSIONAL DEGREE PLANS.
1-14     (a)  The board may establish one or more plans to allow a person to
1-15     prepay all or part of the tuition and required fees for enrollment
1-16     in a graduate or professional degree program at an institution of
1-17     higher education, if the board determines that:
1-18                 (1)  a particular plan is feasible; and
1-19                 (2)  there is sufficient demand for the plan to justify
1-20     administration of the plan.
1-21           (b)  The board may limit a plan established under this
1-22     section to a specified field or fields of study, to a specified
1-23     level or type of degree, or to a specified number of hours or
1-24     semesters, as the board considers appropriate.
1-25           (c)  The board is not required to continue offering a plan
1-26     established under this section in subsequent years.
1-27           (d)  The board may modify the terms of a prepaid tuition
1-28     contract otherwise required by this subchapter for a plan
1-29     established under this section as the board considers necessary.
1-30           SECTION 2.  The importance of this legislation and the
1-31     crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
1-32     emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
1-33     constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
1-34     days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended,
1-35     and that this Act take effect and be in force from and after its
1-36     passage, and it is so enacted.
1-37                                  * * * * *