Texas college tuition plan to limit refunds in face of mammoth deficit
A prepaid college tuition plan in the U.S. state of Texas is rescinding a long-standing policy that pays parents big refunds as the plan faces a projected 2.1 billion-U.S.-dollar deficit, reports said Thursday.
The Dallas Morning News reported that the Texas Guaranteed Tuition Plan has decided to cancel its policy that pays sometimes as much as 200 percent in refunds when parents who invested in their children's futures through the plan cancel their tuition contracts.
The managing board for the Texas Guaranteed Tuition Plan has adopted a new policy that will restrict future refunds to the actual amount paid by parents or others who purchased college slots, minus administrative fees. The new policy takes effect on Nov.1.
Right now, refunds include the initial amount paid and the difference between the original contract price and a current value based on average tuition rates for state colleges and universities.
For example, a parent who paid about 11,000 U.S. dollars for a tuition contract a decade ago would now be entitled to nearly three times that amount. That's because tuition fees in Texas have soared since the state legislature deregulated tuition in 2003 during a fiscal crunch.
"The board believes that the new refund policy is in the best interests of the plan in order to maximize the financial resources of the plan," the board for the plan said in a letter to parents this month. The new move is expected to save at least 60 million dollars in refund payments.
About 158,000 young Texans were enrolled in the program between1996 and 2003, when it was closed to newcomers after the tuition deregulation, the reports said.
