University tuition and fee restraints; annual rates; uniform reporting requirements.

Sec. 241c. (1) No later than the last business day of August of each year, each public university that receives an appropriation in section 236 shall submit the amount of tuition and fees actually charged to a full-time resident undergraduate student for academic year 2026-2027 as part of the public university's higher education institutional data inventory (HEIDI) data. A public university shall report any revisions for any semester of the reported academic year to HEIDI within 15 days of being adopted. (2) Payments under section 236d must be made only to a public university that certifies to the state budget director by the last business day of August of each year that its board did not adopt an increase in tuition and fee rates for resident undergraduate students after September 1, 2025 for the 2025-2026 academic year and that its board will not adopt an increase in tuition and fee rates for resident undergraduate students for the 2026-2027 academic year that is greater than 4.0% or $651.00, whichever is greater. For the academic year 2027-2028, the tuition and fee restraint rate for resident undergraduate students is an increase of not greater than 4.0% or $651.00, whichever is greater. It is the intent of the legislature that in the next fiscal year, the tuition and fee restraint rate will be adjusted only for the subsequent academic year. As used in this subsection: (a) "Fee" means any board-authorized fee that will be paid by more than 1/2 of all resident undergraduate students at least once during their enrollment at a public university, as described in the higher education institutional data inventory (HEIDI) user manual. A public university increasing a fee that applies to a specific subset of students or courses shall provide sufficient information to prove that the increase applied to that subset will not cause the increase in the average amount of board-authorized total tuition and fees paid by resident undergraduate students in the academic year to exceed the limit established in this subsection. (b) "Tuition and fee rate" means the average of full-time rates paid by a majority of students in each undergraduate class, based on an unweighted average of the rates authorized by the public university board and actually charged to students, deducting any uniformly rebated or refunded amounts, for the 2 semesters with the highest levels of full-time equated resident undergraduate enrollment during the academic year, as described in the higher education institutional data inventory (HEIDI) user manual. (3) The state budget director shall implement uniform reporting requirements to ensure that a public university receiving a payment under section 236d has satisfied the tuition restraint requirements of this section. The state budget director has the sole authority to determine if a public university has met the requirements of this section. Information reported by a public university to the state budget director under this subsection must also be reported to the standard report recipients.