Do all states have these college laws?

[Lecka]

@Emilygf 

I meant the requirement to study the Texas Constitution.  

[Lecka]

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/ED/htm/ED.51.htm#51.301
 

Section 51.301, Sub-Chapter F Required and Elective Courses

 

[Dmmetler]

47 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

This is what I am finding for Texas Texas Education Code Section 51.302 - American or Texas History (2019) (public.law)

This states that part of the core requirement at a state univ must inlcude " six semester hours or its equivalent in American History. A student is entitled to submit as much as three semester hours of credit or its equivalent in Texas History in partial satisfaction of this requirement"

I am not finding anything that states that Texas government is required for all students graduating from a state univeristy.  Am I missing something somewhere?

I know that in order to do a graduate program in education at Texas Tech, there were a few undergrad classes I had to test out of or take, and Texas History/Government was one of them. I crammed for that one, not wanting to pay tuition for it.

[MercyA]

What in the world? That all seems really odd to me.

[Bootsie]

16 minutes ago, Dmmetler said:

I know that in order to do a graduate program in education at Texas Tech, there were a few undergrad classes I had to test out of or take, and Texas History/Government was one of them. I crammed for that one, not wanting to pay tuition for it.

I know at one time, at least, in order to receive a teaching certificate in Texas one had to meet particular Texas history requirements.  

The requirement for study of the constitution for all students that appears in Sec 51.301 is:

Every college and university receiving state support or state aid from public funds shall give a course of instruction in government or political science which includes consideration of the Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the states, with special emphasis on that of Texas.

I don't know that "special emphasis" is clearly defined anywhere.

Edited October 27, 2021 by Bootsie

[chiguirre]

2 hours ago, Bootsie said:

This is what I am finding for Texas Texas Education Code Section 51.302 - American or Texas History (2019) (public.law)

This states that part of the core requirement at a state univ must inlcude " six semester hours or its equivalent in American History. A student is entitled to submit as much as three semester hours of credit or its equivalent in Texas History in partial satisfaction of this requirement"

I am not finding anything that states that Texas government is required for all students graduating from a state univeristy.  Am I missing something somewhere?

Back up one section, it's Section 51.301.

Quote

Sec. 51.301. GOVERNMENT OR POLITICAL SCIENCE. (a) Every college and university receiving state support or state aid from public funds shall give a course of instruction in government or political science which includes consideration of the Constitution of the United States and the constitutions of the states, with special emphasis on that of Texas. This course shall have a credit value of not less than six semester hours or its equivalent. Except as provided by Subsection (c), a college or university receiving state support or state aid from public funds may not grant a baccalaureate degree or a lesser degree or academic certificate to any person unless the person has credit for such a course. The college or university may determine that a student has satisfied this requirement in whole or in part on the basis of credit granted to the student by the college or university for a substantially equivalent course completed at another accredited college or university or on the basis of the student's successful completion of an advanced standing examination administered on the conditions and under the circumstances common for the college or university's advanced standing examinations. The college or university may grant as much as three semester hours of credit or its equivalent toward satisfaction of this requirement for substantially equivalent work completed by the student in the program of an approved senior R.O.T.C. unit.

 

[Bootsie]

I taught at a state university in Texas.  We were under tremendous pressure because we had a number of students who would enroll in classes, drop, repeat--and after 10 years of attending the university had perhaps completed 1/3 of the classes they started and still didn't have a degree.  The Texas legislature did a lot of ridiculous things to address the problem.  One of these included mandating that a student could reach the syllabus for a class within three clicks of entering the university website at the time the student registered for the course.  I really doubt that a student who failed or dropped my class did so because it took four or five clicks on the university's website to reach my syllabus.  And, the university often did not have resources to hire someone to teach the course before the registration period began and require that the person have the syllabus designed in February for a course beginning in August.  In fact, although courses begin in August for the fall semester, new contracts do not become effective until Sept 1--which means new faculty cannot even get an email address until Sept 1, but should have had a syllabus (which states their contact info) six or seven months earlier!

[TheReader]

18 hours ago, Lecka said:

My husband did online college with a Texas college (before switching to a different online program) and took a Texas Government class that he was told was required.  It transferred fine, but it was also kind-of random once he changed and there was no state government requirement.

I had never heard of a class like this before.  

 

15 hours ago, Kassia said:

Yes, this was the only core class my dd still needed at college in TX since she did all of her DE in OH and they obviously didn't offer TX government here.  I think it's required by all TX state universities for graduation.  

 

Yes, our state legislature mandates that all students in college must take US Gov't as well as TX Gov't, so 6 credit hours total, required to graduate, by all students. It is definitely dumb (IMO).  That's besides the Core curriculum requirement for 6 credits of history. 

My sons both had TX gov't taught at the community college by a good, but hard, professor.....from NY. So her take on TX Gov't was.....interesting. I like to think of the horror the legislators would have, hearing TX Gov't taught through the eyes of an "outsider."  She was an interesting prof; able to be completely unbiased when she taught my oldest US Gov't (during an election year, and a rather contested one, at that).  Her bias showed up strong in explaining her thoughts on TX Gov't, though; it was kind of funny, actually. 

7 hours ago, Farrar said:

I assume these are actually laws that apply to the public university system in Texas. I can't imagine how they could tell private institutions to follow these rules. In that sense, yes, other state university systems have overarching policies that apply to all students across all public universities. These do seem particularly restrictive.

For college? No. I had no idea there were states that required a state government class for college students. Sorry, but that's absurd. Texas, you're not that special. Every state has a state government and unique history. I've never in my life heard of students being required to take a college class in state government.

Yes, public colleges/universities. I'm not sure how it would work if you started at a private institution, transferred to a public one, and then had extra credits at the end.....if your private university credits would count towards your various overages/limits or not. The reasoning I've been given for the various limits is that it helps to limit misuse of state funds that help subsidize tuition. 

The part that bothers me the most is the inconsistency across the three rules, so that an exemption/exception to the rule in one case is not an exception in all three cases (namely, that a full withdrawal from the school still counts against you if/when you return to college -- unless it's been 10 yrs since those classes, they'll still count towards your 3 tries and 30 hours over your degree plan rule). 

7 hours ago, Lecka said:

I also think it’s ironic that (in my impression) a lot of people in Texas have a libertarian and/or small-government preference, but then are in a state with extra legislation for something like this.  

 

I agree. So much.

[Wheres Toto]

20 hours ago, Lecka said:

My husband did online college with a Texas college (before switching to a different online program) and took a Texas Government class that he was told was required.  It transferred fine, but it was also kind-of random once he changed and there was no state government requirement.

I had never heard of a class like this before.  

 

10 hours ago, Bambam said:

Local state government isn't required in other states? Interesting. I think it makes sense because - well, at least in TX, our government is slightly different than the federal government. Good to understand how to it works, so you can work to influence/change what needs to be changed. 

I went to college in Texas for 3 semesters way back in the late 80's.   I had to take Texas History/Government and I found it super strange.  It was also a harder class for me than most of the other students since they were in state students and I'm from New Jersey.  We didn't do a whole lot of Texas history in NJ, but most of them had history with a Texas emphasis almost every year in public school.  Interestingly, they knew a lot less about colonial times/Revolutionary History than I did.   

New Jersey doesn't require NJ History in college, I think it's done in 4th grade mostly.  There's a lot of NJ history in all the colonial/Revolutionary War stuff though.  

We also definitely don't have the limited credits laws.   I have a ton of excess credits due to changing majors multiple times, and transferring from Texas.  

[Bootsie]

55 minutes ago, Wheres Toto said:

 

I went to college in Texas for 3 semesters way back in the late 80's.   I had to take Texas History/Government and I found it super strange.  It was also a harder class for me than most of the other students since they were in state students and I'm from New Jersey.  We didn't do a whole lot of Texas history in NJ, but most of them had history with a Texas emphasis almost every year in public school.  Interestingly, they knew a lot less about colonial times/Revolutionary History than I did.   

New Jersey doesn't require NJ History in college, I think it's done in 4th grade mostly.  There's a lot of NJ history in all the colonial/Revolutionary War stuff though.  

We also definitely don't have the limited credits laws.   I have a ton of excess credits due to changing majors multiple times, and transferring from Texas.  

These Texas laws have been implemented in the last couple of decades (I think the earliest was in 1999).  Transferring from an out-of-state school should not impact a Texas student because classes that were taken in aother state were not subsidized by the state of Texas.  It is not that students in Texas can not take more classes/credits--it is that they cannot continue to take them at the in-state subsidized rate.  

Schools in other states will have to have Satisfactory Academic Progress defintions for students receiving an federal student aid.  So, even in other states students who are withdrawing from or repeating a number of classes can face issues.

[Laura Corin]

I find this really different from my experience.  At the UK university where I work,  you can only change module up to the end of week 2 of the semester. After that you are committed unless you can show extreme personal circumstances.  Finding a module too hard is not a reason for a later change. 

If you fail badly, you can't retake. If you fail by a bit, you can take a reassessment exam. So far as I know, you can't retake a whole module in a future semester except due to illness, bereavement,  etc.

If you are short on credits, you can take a different module to make them up. If the failed module is a prerequisite for continuing with a major, then you have to change degree.

[TravelingChris]

On 10/26/2021 at 4:15 PM, Dmmetler said:

30 hours over could be really restrictive if they count college classes completed in high school. It wouldn't be hard to exceed that with some extra classes taken to meet high school check boxes, plus maybe a major change. 

Yeah- 39 hours is only 10 classes.  Have several college classes as a high schooler, and decide to change majors even pretty early on and you will 

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, TravelingChris said:

Yeah- 39 hours is only 10 classes.  Have several college classes as a high schooler, and decide to change majors even pretty early on and you will 

classes taken when high school do not count toward this 30 hour limit.  10 classes would be a full year or 25% of a degree.  And then assuming that you are at your limit would mean that none of those hours counted in any way (as meeting core requirements or as electives), which is going to be highly unusual.  

[TheReader]

4 hours ago, Bootsie said:

classes taken when high school do not count toward this 30 hour limit.  10 classes would be a full year or 25% of a degree.  And then assuming that you are at your limit would mean that none of those hours counted in any way (as meeting core requirements or as electives), which is going to be highly unusual.  

Except, as pointed out many times in this thread already, it counts all attempted hours -- so if you have a medical withdrawal, for any reason, and w/draw from a whole semester and then repeat those hours (assume 15 hours attempted), that's 15 towards your overage right there. 

There *are* legitimate ways that one can end up in danger of this.