Beginning this fall, new undergraduate students in Texas colleges and universities will see a cap on the number of courses they may drop.
The 80th Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1231 limiting the number of courses an institution of higher learning may allow an undergraduate student to drop. SB 1231 will affect any student enrolled as a first-time freshman at Lamar University and all other Texas universities and colleges, beginning in the fall 2007 semester.
The bill requires the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to adopt and enforce new rules established in the bill. The coordinating board defines a “dropped course” as a course an undergraduate student at an institution of higher education has enrolled in for credit but did not complete.
The new rules prohibit an institution of higher education from allowing a student to drop more than six courses during their undergraduate program, including any courses a transfer student has dropped at another university.
A student will be only allowed to drop more than six courses if he or she can show “good cause” for dropping more than that number.
“Good cause” includes situations that would affect the student’s ability to satisfactorily complete a course, including: a severe illness or debilitating condition; a student’s responsibility to care for a sick, injured or needy person; the death of a member of the student’s family; active duty service by the student or a member of the student’s family; a change in work schedule beyond the student’s control; or other good cause as determined by the college or university.
The new rules also say a course that a student is enrolled in concurrently with a lecture course, such as a lab, is not considered to be a course separate from the lecture course in determining the number of courses dropped.
The rules established by the bill include guidelines for the refund or adjustment of tuition and mandatory fees for dropped courses and student withdrawals. The amount of money a student is refunded after dropping a course depends on the number of days they attended a course before dropping it.
