First Year Grade Exclusion

Undergraduates alert: Your Legislature is putting the smackdown on shopping and dropping courses at Texas state universities.

Starting this fall, students at public colleges can drop no more than six courses as undergraduates. The rule applies to those enrolling as first-time freshmen and will follow them until they graduate.

Rep. Fred Brown, R-College Station, wrote the cap legislation in the House. It stalled there, but he attached it as an amendment to a successful Senate bill. Brown didn’t conduct an economic-impact analysis, but he said dropping classes costs taxpayers money.

“It puts a huge drain on the state,” Brown said late last week, adding that he contacted universities before offering the bill. “I called around. Nobody had a problem with it.”

Brown apparently didn’t talk to the people who will have to implement the bill. They’re hustling to deal with the new rule, but many would like to see it disappear.

“It kind of caught everybody by surprise,” said Dominic Chavez, spokesman for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. “Everyone thought they’d made it go back to bed. There’s going to be a real challenge tracking it across institutions.

“Schools are going to have to change the way they do business. There will be a cost involved.”

*Sourced from Star-Telegram online