Relating to requiring that competency-based baccalaureate degree programs be offered at certain public institutions of higher education.

Contracts

• Vendor Renegotiation: Review all Master Services Agreements (MSAs) with Online Program Managers (OPMs) and courseware providers. Revenue-share models must be recalculated to ensure the total cost to the student remains under the 50% cap.
• Faculty Agreements: Revise faculty handbooks and employment contracts to define roles for "competency evaluators" or "academic coaches," which differ legally and operationally from traditional tenure-track teaching loads.

Hiring/Training

• Assessment Training: Academic staff require immediate training on competency-based assessment (mastery verification) versus traditional credit-hour grading.
• Financial Aid Staffing: Financial aid officers must be trained on a distinct billing category for CBE students to prevent accidental overcharging that would violate the statutory cap.

Reporting & Record-Keeping

• Program Approval: Systems must submit new CBE program proposals in high-demand fields to the THECB for approval prior to the 2026-2027 academic year.
• Inflation Logs: Beginning with the 2027-2028 academic year, institutions must document the application of the CPI-U inflation adjustment to the tuition cap annually.
• Mastery Documentation: Record retention policies must be updated to archive student "artifacts of mastery" for accreditation purposes, as traditional transcripts will not suffice.

Fees & Costs

• Price Cap Enforcement: Bursars must implement a hard cap on total tuition and fees for these specific programs, set at 50% of the average cost of attendance.
• Cost Modeling: Finance departments must immediately calculate the "average cost of attendance" based on current data to determine the maximum allowable price point for the new degrees.