STAND. COM. REP. NO. 189

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 1413

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2023

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Higher Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 1413 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII RESIDENT TUITION FEE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to require the University of Hawaii to grant resident tuition fees to an individual enrolling in an undergraduate degree program who graduated from a high school in the State, under certain conditions.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Education, University of Hawai‘i System, Hawai‘i P-20 Partnerships for Education, and one individual.

Your Committee finds that many high school seniors experience difficulty answering the University of Hawaii's residency questionnaire as part of the admission process for the University. The questionnaire presents an especial barrier to students with complex living situations, in particular those who are housing insecure or are part of nontraditional family arrangements. This measure would remove this barrier to enrollment at the University of Hawaii and increase access to higher education by requiring the University of Hawaii to grant resident status for the purposes of determining tuition fees to any individual who graduated from a high school in the State, under certain conditions.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Clarifying that an individual who graduated from high school in the State shall not qualify for resident tuition fees if within the past two years the individual claimed resident status of another state or applied to another state's institution of higher learning as a resident of that state; and

(2) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Higher Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1413, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1413, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Higher Education,

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DONNA MERCADO KIM, Chair