SB 410

This bill clarifies the tuition grant amount awarded to eligible national guard

members who complete higher education courses and modifies provisions relating to

administration of the tuition grant program.

Under current law, the Department of Military Affairs awards tuition grants

to national guard members to reimburse them for higher education tuition costs if

certain eligibility criteria and other requirements are satisfied. Grant applications

must contain information required by DMA to establish that the applicant qualifies

for the grant. They must also contain the signatures of the guard member and a

representative of the guard member's school, certifying course completion and that

the guard member maintains the required minimum grade point average. The

amount of the tuition grant payment is equal to 100 percent of the actual tuition

charged by the guard member's school or 100 percent of the maximum resident

undergraduate tuition charged by the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a

comparable number of credits, whichever amount is less.

Current law also authorizes the Board of Regents of the UW System to establish

differing tuition for different classes of students enrolled in educational programs,

commonly referred to as differential tuition. Although current law does not define

differential tuition, the Board of Regents adopted a policy describing differential

tuition as tuition that is added to the base tuition level for the purpose of

supplementing services and programming for students within a UW System

institution. Differential tuition, which can be institution-wide or program-specific,

must be approved by the Board of Regents and, after approval, may be incorporated

into the institution's tuition schedule. For example, the Board of Regents has

approved program-specific differential tuition at UW-Madison for students in

engineering and business programs.

This bill clarifies that differential tuition, as applicable, must be included in

calculating the maximum resident undergraduate tuition charged by UW-Madison

when DMA determines the amount of tuition grants to award to eligible guard

members. The bill also removes the requirement that grant applications contain the

signatures of the guard member and the school's representative certifying course

completion and compliance with GPA requirements. The bill requires DMA to rely

on a qualifying school's certification in determining that an applicant has achieved

the minimum GPA to be eligible for a tuition grant. The bill also requires DMA to

make payment of the tuition grant not later than 30 days after receiving this

certification.