| TO: | Honorable Dan Branch, Chair, House Committee on Higher Education |
| FROM: | Ursula Parks, Director, Legislative Budget Board |
| IN RE: | HB30 by Branch (relating to measures to facilitate the transfer of students within the public higher education system and the timely graduation of students from public institutions of higher education.), Committee Report 1st House, Substituted |
The bill would require each general academic institution to publish a description of learning objectives, content, and prerequisites for at least 12 courses offered by the institution for which lower-division credit is frequently transferred to the institution on the Internet. Institutions would also be required to identify the public junior colleges from which the institution regularly recieves transfer students, and establish articulation agreements, for at least five degree plans, with each college from which the institution has received an average of at least 5 percent of transfer students in the three preceeding academic years. An institution's admissions policies would not be affected by participation in these articulation agreements.
The bill includes a provision whereby students may not be required by an institution of higher education to complete more than the minimum number of semester credit hours required by the institution's board-recognized accrediting agency or professional licensure requirements to earn a baccalaureate or associate degree. This provision would not apply to associate degrees awarded by an institution to students enrolled prior to the 2015 fall semester.
The bill would also require each governing board to certify that the institution does not prohibit, or suggest in any published materials, that the acceptance of transfer credit based solely on the accreditation of the sending institution when submitting its annual required list of courses removed or added for the current academic year to the THECB.
Based on the LBB's analysis of responses from public university systems and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, it is assumed that the duties and responsibilities associated with implementing the provisions of the bill could be accomplished using existing resources.
| Source Agencies: | 710 Texas A&M University System Administrative and General Offices, 720 The University of Texas System Administration, 781 Higher Education Coordinating Board, 783 University of Houston System Administration, 758 Texas State University System, 768 Texas Tech University System Administration, 769 University of North Texas System Administration
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| LBB Staff: | UP, SDE, KK, JI, GO, RT
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