Texas lawmakers institute major reforms to higher education

Texas lawmakers institute major reforms to higher education

By Patrick Brendel Friday, 19 June 2009

Texas lawmakers passed legislation creating incentives for public colleges to strive toward achieving Tier One research university status. They tweaked the state’s Top 10 Percent rule for college admissions, but balked at completely reforming the system. Legislation to re-regulate college tuition increases failed at the end of the Regular Session. Local lawmakers were able to secure funding for public institutions located in Round Rock.

The state of Texas has two public Tier One research institutions: The University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M in College Station. (The other Texas Tier One school is the private Rice University.) In contrast, California has nine “flagship” schools, while New York has five.

Colleges throughout the state are vying for the elite Tier One status and the accompanying prestige and funds. Contenders include the University of Houston, Texas Tech University, University of North Texas, UT-Arlington, UT-Dallas, UT-El Paso and UT-San Antonio.

To avoid inciting regional acrimony, lawmakers shied away from designating particular schools as Tier One, instead creating incentives for emerging research universities and a process to achieve Tier One designation.

The legislation establishes three incentive funds that would go to colleges according to research performed, number of degrees awarded and amount of private gifts received.

Schools striving for Tier One status would have to submit detailed, long-range strategic plans to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, which is in charge of Tier One designations.

The Tier One legislation also included $150 million in bonds to rebuild the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. The campus was severely damaged by Hurricane Ike last fall.

Since 1997, Texas high school students graduating in the top 10 percent of their class are guaranteed admission to the public college campus of their choice.

The University of Texas at Austin has long pushed legislators to change the Top 10 Percent rule, citing shrinking flexibility in admissions decisions as it voluntarily attempted to restrain the total number of students enrolled each year.

In the fall of 2008, more than 75 percent of enrolled freshmen were admitted under the Top 10 Percent rule. Almost half of Texas A&M’s fall 2008 freshman class were Top 10 Percent students.

Legislators gave serious consideration to a bill that would have significantly reformed the Top 10 Percent Rule. The bill capped the number of Top 10 Percent students a campus has to accept at 50 percent of freshman admissions. (Another version of that bill set the cap at 60 percent.) On the House floor, an impromptu coalition of rural and minority legislators swamped the proposal due to the belief that the Top 10 Percent Rule provided a more level playing field for their constituents.

They approved an amendment to the bill that makes it applicable only to UT-Austin. The legislation allows UT-Austin to cap the amount of Top 10 Percent students at 75 percent of the freshman class.

Due to shortfalls in state funding for higher education, in 2003 the Legislature began allowing Texas colleges to set their own tuition rates. Since then, tuition and fees have risen by more than 85 percent.

In an attempt to reign in skyrocketing college costs, lawmakers tried to pass legislation that prohibits Texas’ major schools—including UT and Texas A&M—from increasing their tuition and fees by more than five percent each year.

The legislation also encouraged state lawmakers to provide adequate funding to public higher education institutions.

In the end, objections from the university systems won out, and no changes were made to tuition deregulation.

Lawmakers also secured $16 million in funding over the next two years for the Texas A&M Health Science Center in Round Rock, led by state Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown and state Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan. The money will be used for construction and general operations.

Legislators were unable to obtain nearly $100 million in revenue bonds to expand the Texas State University campus in Round Rock. The money would have been used to relocate the College of Health Professions from San Marcos to Round Rock and to construct two buildings at the Round Rock Higher Education Center. However, $350,000 was appropriated to the RRHEC.

Legislation that would allow local authorities to call elections on instituting local taxes to pay for transportation projects failed in dramatic fashion at the end of the Regular Session. With it, the idea almost destroyed the Texas Department of Transportation as well.

Texas Senate transportation chair John Carona, R-Dallas, attempted to append the local tax options to a massive sunset reform bill of TxDOT. When the tax options were stripped from the sunset bill, Carona threatened to filibuster. Failure to pass the sunset bill would mean the termination of TxDOT.

Running out of time, legislators were faced with a so-called “safety net” bill that would have allowed TxDOT (and other agencies) to continue functioning until 2011. At our deadline, legislators had failed to reach an agreement on the safety net bill. In all likelihood, Gov. Rick Perry would call a special session if the safety net bill did not pass.

If the local options bill had become law, it would have been the first adjustment to motor fuels tax in decades. A bill by state Rep. Vickie Truitt, R-Keller, would have tied the state tax on motor fuels to the rate of inflation. The state fuel tax has remained at 20 cents per gallon since 1991.

The bill also would have allowed counties participating in metropolitan planning organizations (including Williamson County) to hold elections to create new local fuel taxes to pay for area projects.

The bill would have stopped state highway fund money from going to purposes other than road or rail.

Because it was a constitutional amendment, to take effect it would have had to be approved by voters in a statewide election. Any extra taxes would also have to be OK’d by local voters.

Truitt’s bill was different from Carona’s bill, which died in the House. His bill covered the largest metropolitan areas in the state and included more local funding options in addition to the fuels tax (such as vehicle registration fees).

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, wrote the section of Carona’s bill dealing with the greater Austin area. Upon the request of state Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, Watson did not include Williamson County in the bill.

Information available as of June 1.