85R784 KSD-D By: Bettencourt S.B. No. 2033 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED AN ACT relating to the fixed tuition price plan offered by certain general academic teaching institutions. BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS: SECTION 1. Section 54.017, Education Code, is amended by amending Subsection (c) and adding Subsections (c-1) and (c-2) to read as follows: (c) The governing board of an institution to which this section applies shall offer entering undergraduate students, including undergraduate students who transfer to the institution, the opportunity to participate in a fixed tuition price plan under which the institution, subject to any restrictions or qualifications adopted by the governing board, agrees: (1) not to increase tuition charges per semester credit hour for a participating student for at least the first 18 [12] consecutive semesters that occur after the date of the student's initial enrollment at any public or private institution of higher education, regardless of whether the student enrolls at any institution in those semesters; and (2) to provide to any student participating in the fixed tuition price plan: (A) a rebate of tuition charges, in an amount prescribed by the institution, if the student is awarded a baccalaureate degree by the institution within four calendar years after the date of the student's initial enrollment at any public or private institution of higher education; and (B) a rebate of tuition charges, in an amount prescribed by the institution that is less than the rebate amount prescribed under Paragraph (A), if the student does not qualify for a rebate under Paragraph (A) and is awarded a baccalaureate degree by the institution within five calendar years after the date of the student's initial enrollment at any public or private institution of higher education. (c-1) An institution to which this section applies shall provide to each entering undergraduate student, at the time the student is offered the opportunity to participate in the institution's fixed tuition price plan, detailed information regarding the tuition rebates offered by the institution under Subsection (c)(2), including the amounts of those rebates [, and subject to any restrictions or qualifications adopted by the governing board]. (c-2) For purposes of this section, one or more summer terms occurring in the same summer is considered a semester. SECTION 2. Section 54.017, Education Code, as amended by this Act, applies beginning with fixed tuition price plans offered to entering students at general academic teaching institutions for the 2018 fall semester. Fixed tuition price plans offered to entering students at general academic teaching institutions for a semester or term before the 2018 fall semester are governed by the law in effect immediately before the effective date of this Act, and that law is continued in effect for that purpose. SECTION 3. This Act takes effect January 1, 2018.