This website will be unavailable from Thursday, May 30, 2024 at 6:00 p.m. through Monday, June 3, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. due to data center maintenance.

                                                                                

79R8154 JLZ-D

By:  West, Royce, et al.                                        S.C.R. No. 24 



CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
	WHEREAS, Over the past 60 years, a series of shifts in both 
the national and Texas economies have progressively increased the 
educational requirements for much of the workforce; U.S. Bureau of 
Labor Statistics projections indicate that by 2008 more than 30 
percent of the nation's jobs will require a postsecondary 
education; and
	WHEREAS, This trend has serious implications for Texas, given 
its current demographics; while its prosperity will depend heavily 
on a greater number of highly educated young adults entering 
tomorrow's workforce, a growing segment of the state's college-age 
population is coming from families with little or no history of 
participation in higher education and therefore little or no 
expectation of future college enrollment; and
	WHEREAS, Texas must close this gap or face a bleak future of 
declining economic and social well-being; national studies 
indicate that providing financial aid is one of the best methods of 
encouraging enrollment and success in higher education, especially 
among underrepresented populations without the means to otherwise 
participate; and
	WHEREAS, Unfortunately, two factors inhibit the potential 
for state financial aid programs to maximize this participation; 
students and their families find the process of applying for 
financial aid complex and intimidating, while state funding for 
financial aid programs is limited; and
	WHEREAS, The undue complexity facing financial aid 
applicants begins with the initial step in the process, filling out 
the four-page Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that 
students and families must complete before being considered for 
most federal, state, or institutional student aid programs; and
	WHEREAS, Indicative of the burden imposed on applicants is 
the fact that completing this form is sometimes comparable to 
filing one's income taxes, and, in fact, applicants must provide or 
be able to document much of the same information in both cases; and
	WHEREAS, Recent proposals in Congress, most notably H.R. 
4283--the College Access and Opportunity Act of 2004--have 
attempted to simplify the financial aid application process for 
needy students and families; H.R. 4283, for example, would have 
made it easier for the neediest students to benefit from federal 
student aid programs by simplifying and expanding eligibility for 
use of the "simplified needs test" to determine how much aid a 
family qualifies to receive; and
	WHEREAS, H.R. 4283 also would have helped distribute 
financial aid information to low-income families by requiring that 
special efforts be made through federal sources to notify students 
and parents who qualify for free lunch, food stamps, or other 
similar assistance programs of their potential eligibility for a 
maximum college Pell Grant; and
	WHEREAS, Another provision that could have benefited Texas 
institutions was a requirement for a new formula to distribute 
federal campus-based funds among colleges and universities; the 
current allocation of federal work-study funds, educational 
opportunity grants, and loans is based largely on when a campus 
began its program participation and the state in which it is located 
without considering institutional missions or state population 
growth; and
	WHEREAS, Five states, including Texas, are expected to 
accommodate approximately two-thirds of the nation's projected 
increase in the college-age population between 2000 and 2015; yet 
in 2003, Texas received only $145.6 million, or 7.7 percent, of the 
$1.9 billion distributed through these programs, highlighting the 
need for revision of the current formulas; and
	WHEREAS, While H.R. 4283 and other related proposals 
ultimately did not pass, it is nevertheless incumbent upon the 
Texas congressional delegation to support similar legislation that 
would simplify the overly complicated FAFSA, require a more 
equitable formula for distributing federal funds for student 
financial aid programs benefiting institutions of higher 
education, and remedy the disproportion between relative shares of 
burden and benefits; now, therefore, be it
	RESOLVED, That the 79th Legislature of the State of Texas 
hereby respectfully urge the Congress of the United States to enact 
legislation that would simplify the Free Application for Federal 
Student Aid, help distribute financial aid information to 
low-income families, and require the use of a new formula for 
equitably distributing federal campus-based funds among 
institutions so that each institution's share of the benefits is 
commensurate with its share of the burden; and, be it further
	RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official 
copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to 
the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the 
senate of the United States Congress, and to all the members of the 
Texas delegation to the congress with the request that this 
resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a 
memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.