85R7895 JRJ-D
By: Keough H.B. No. 1602
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to authorization by the Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board for certain public junior colleges to offer
baccalaureate degree programs.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Section 130.0012, Education Code, is amended by
amending Subsections (a) and (g) and adding Subsections (b-4) and
(g-1) to read as follows:
(a) The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board may
[shall] authorize public junior colleges to offer baccalaureate
degree programs in the fields of applied science, [and] applied
technology, and nursing under this section. Offering a
baccalaureate degree program under this section does not otherwise
alter the role and mission of a public junior college.
(b-4) The coordinating board shall authorize a public
junior college with a service area located wholly or partly in a
county with a population of more than three million or a public
junior college with a student population of at least 75,000 and
contiguous to such a county to offer a baccalaureate degree program
in the field of nursing. A degree program authorized under this
subsection may be offered under an articulation agreement as
provided by Section 29.908 with an early college education program
located in the service area of the public junior college.
(g) Except as provided by Subsection (g-1), in [In] its
recommendations to the legislature relating to state funding for
public junior colleges, the coordinating board shall recommend that
a public junior college receive substantially the same state
support for junior-level and senior-level courses offered under
this section as that provided to a general academic teaching
institution for substantially similar courses. In determining the
contact hours attributable to students enrolled in a junior-level
or senior-level course offered under this section used to determine
a public junior college's proportionate share of state
appropriations under Section 130.003, the coordinating board shall
weigh those contact hours as necessary to provide the junior
college the appropriate level of state support to the extent state
funds for those courses are included in the appropriations. This
subsection does not prohibit the legislature from directly
appropriating state funds to support junior-level and senior-level
courses offered under this section.
(g-1) A degree program created under Subsection (b-4) may be
funded only by a public junior college's proportionate share of
state appropriations under Section 130.003, local funds, and
private sources. This subsection does not require the legislature
to appropriate state funds to support a degree program created
under Subsection (b-4).
SECTION 2. This Act takes effect September 1, 2017.