Honorable Dan Branch, Chair, House Committee on Higher Education
FROM:
John S. O'Brien, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
HB708 by Rose (relating to coordination of postsecondary curricula and to the publication of transfer guidelines for academic planning to support academic progress by students enrolled at public institutions of higher education.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted
No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.
This bill would require each institution of higher education, in a format adopted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, to publish all institutional and statewide articulation agreements in its course catalogs and on its website. Each institution would include the expiration dates for each published articulation agreement on its website and remove expired agreements within 30 days. The bill would direct the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to make recommendations, no later than September 30 of each even-numbered year, to improve the dissemination of transfer information to students and institution participation in articulation agreements. Students would be entitled to transfer to another institution under an articulation agreement within four years of first enrollment.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board indicates that it could absorb the costs associated with the bill within its current resources.
Local Government Impact
No fiscal implication to units of local government is anticipated.