Chapters

Increased State Benefits for Texas Veterans

(10-AUG-2009)

The 81^st Texas Legislature passed legislation (SB93, SB297, and SB847) which amended the Hazlewood Exemption Program (Hazlewood Act) statute, TEC 54.203, for veterans, their spouses and their children. These changes were effective beginning in the fall 2009 semester.

Hazlewood Changes
· Expanded eligibility to spouses of veterans of Armed Forces or Texas National Guard or Air National Guard members who are killed or died while serving, MIA, or became disabled, etc. Spouses must be TX residents for the term or semester for which they use the benefit. Children of these veterans remain eligible.

· Extended eligibility to veterans who declared Texas as their home of record, or entered the service in Texas (even if they were not TX residents at the time of entry), as well as veterans who are residents. Eliminates the reference to “citizen of Texas.”

· Allowed veterans to transfer their unused Hazlewood hours (up to 150 SCH) to a child (stepchild, biological, adopted, or dependent for income tax purposes); eligible child must be a TX resident who is 25 years of age or younger, and make satisfactory academic progress toward a degree, certificate or continuing education program.

· Allowed public technical institutions and public state colleges to pass the cost of fees for programs having "extraordinary costs (e.g. flight training) to students. Previously, only community/jr. colleges were permitted to charge students for the fees associated with high-cost programs.

· Clarified that the Hazlewood exemption could be used for the payment of tuition, fees, dues, and other required charges.

· Clarified that when determining a student’s eligibility to stack federal and state veterans’ benefits, the only federal benefits to be considered are those that can only be used for the payment of tuition and fees. Federal benefits that can be used for both living expenses and tuition and fees can NOT be included in the calculation. In other words, federal education benefits for housing, books, etc. cannot be taken into consideration.

New tuition exemption
· Allowed a child of a service-member who is deployed to active duty in a combat zone outside of the US to be exempted from the payment of tuition (not fees). To qualify, the child must be a resident of Texas or entitled to pay the resident tuition rate. Although this provision amended the Hazlewood statute (54.203), note that it is not the same as the Hazlewood exemption, which exempts children of deceased or disabled vets for an exemption from tuition, fees, and other required charges. This is only an exemption from the payment of resident tuition.