bill requiring a standard warning on financial aid cuts

The text as introduced · 666 words

89R12046 RDR-D

By: West
S.B. No. 2995

A BILL TO BE ENTITLED

AN ACT

relating to the displacement of student financial aid at a public

institution of higher education.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:

SECTION 1. Subchapter A, Chapter 56, Education Code, is

amended by adding Section 56.0094 to read as follows:

Sec. 56.0094. FINANCIAL AID DISPLACEMENT. (a) In this

section:

(1) "Coordinating board" means the Texas Higher

Education Coordinating Board.

(2) "Gift aid" means a grant, scholarship, exemption,

waiver, or other financial aid awarded to a student without a

requirement to repay the aid or earn the aid through work.

(b) The coordinating board shall develop a financial aid

displacement advisory for use by institutions of higher education

under this section that contains:

(1) a statement bordered by a line one point in weight

in a font not less than 14 points in size in the following form:

"Financial aid displacement occurs when a student's

financial aid is reduced because of the receipt of a private

scholarship or for other reasons identified below. This practice

occurs in Texas, and the institution of higher education in which

you are enrolling is required, not later than the 30th day after

reducing your financial aid, to provide you notice of the financial

aid that has been reduced, the amount by which that aid has been

reduced, and why that aid has been reduced."; and

(2) a list of the reasons for which the amount of gift

aid a student is awarded might be revised or reduced under this

chapter.

(c) An institution of higher education shall send the

financial aid displacement advisory developed under Subsection (b)

to a student not later than the seventh day after the date on which

the student is admitted to the institution. The advisory may be

sent by text message, e-mail, or mail.

(d) Not earlier than the 30th day before or later than the

30th day after an institution of higher education revises or

reduces the amount of gift aid a student will receive under this

chapter for a school year, the institution shall send to the student

a financial aid reduction notice identifying:

(1) the gift aid that will be or has been revised or

reduced;

(2) the amount by which the gift aid will be or has

been revised or reduced; and

(3) the reason the gift aid will be or has been revised

or reduced.

(e) An institution of higher education shall annually

report to the coordinating board in a manner provided by

coordinating board rule a report on the revision or reduction of

gift aid at the institution under this chapter during the preceding

academic year. The report must include the following information,

disaggregated by race and sex:

(1) the number of students whose gift aid was revised

or reduced;

(2) the average amount by which the gift aid was

revised or reduced; and

(3) the reasons the gift aid was revised or reduced.

(f) The coordinating board shall annually submit to the

legislature and post on the coordinating board's Internet website a

report on the revision or reduction of gift aid under this chapter

during the preceding academic year. The report must include the

following information, disaggregated by race and sex:

(1) the total number of students whose gift aid was

revised or reduced;

(2) the average amount by which the gift aid was

revised or reduced; and

(3) the three most common reasons the gift aid was

revised or reduced.

(g) The coordinating board shall adopt rules necessary to

implement this section.

SECTION 2. Section 56.0094, Education Code, as added by

this Act, applies beginning with the 2025-2026 academic year.

SECTION 3. This Act takes effect immediately if it receives

a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each house, as

provided by Section 39, Article III, Texas Constitution. If this

Act does not receive the vote necessary for immediate effect, this

Act takes effect September 1, 2025.