HB1105

HB1105 requires Texas public higher-education institutions to waive tuition and laboratory fees for a student employed as a paramedic by a Texas political subdivision, such as a local government, who takes courses offered as part of an emergency medical services curriculum. It does not extend this new exemption to all private-sector paramedics or to every subject they might study. The law took effect June 20, 2025, and applies to charges beginning with the fall 2025 semester; earlier academic periods remain governed by prior law. Final law · History

Important limits remain:

• Security deposits for borrowed property are not covered. The law names tuition and laboratory fees, not all college fees or living expenses.
• To keep the exemption in later terms, the student must make satisfactory progress toward a degree or certificate under the institution’s financial-aid standards.
• Additional undergraduate tuition charged under the repeated/excess-credit rules is not covered. Nor is the specified additional graduate tuition tied to excessive doctoral credit hours.
• For a course taught exclusively through distance education, an institution need not extend the exemption to students beyond 20% of that course’s designated maximum enrollment. This is an enrollment-based limit, not a 20% tuition discount.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board must make eligibility rules, including required educational attainment or paramedic certification, rules for the distance-education exclusion and the maximum number of courses that may be excluded, and a uniform list of covered degree programs. The act directs rulemaking as soon as practicable; it does not itself list every qualifying program. Existing tuition rules, Section 54.014 · Doctoral-credit reference, Section 61.059(l)