Under provisions of the bill, students would be required to file a degree plan with an institution of higher education not later than the end of the second regular semester or term, in which the student earned a cumulative total of 45 or more semester credit hours, including transfer courses, international baccalaureate courses, and dual credit courses.

The bill would require institutions to provide information regarding the degree plan filing requirement and options for consulting with an academic advisor for that purpose, which may include electronic communication.  For a student, to whom this section applies, that does not timely file a degree plan, the bill would require the institution to notify the student that the degree plan is required by law and require the student to consult with an advisor during the semester when the notice was recieved. The student may not obtain an official transcript until the student has filed a degree plan with the institution. This section would apply to undergraduate students who initially enroll in 2012 fall semester.
 
The bill would amend Section 54.203 of the Education Code, by extending tuition and fee exemptions to members of the Texas National Guard and Texas Air National Guard who served on active duty in a theater of combat operations along with the United States armed forces without regard to the length of time served in that theater.
 
This bill also amends Section 61.833 of the Education Code that would require institutions to alert transfer students when they have successfully completed a total of at least 90 credit hours to earn their associate degree. Lower-division institutions, after recieving a student transcript from a general academic institution would be required to review the transcript for determining whether the student earned the credit required to receive an associate degree.
 
This analysis assumes that the provisions of this bill could be implemented using current resources. Institutions could forego tuition and fee revenue as a result of the additional Texas National Guard and Texas Air National Guard students granted tutition fee exemptions of $1.1 million in fiscal year 2012 and $1.1 million in fiscal year 2013 with slight increases in future years. These tuition losses are not considered significant.