2025 · Regular session · House bill
HB3204
HB3204 updates the law governing Sam Houston State University's Polytechnic College and opens specified education and workforce programs to it.
Official caption: Relating to the Polytechnic College at Sam Houston State University, including the college's eligibility to participate in certain programs.
Official report lists House author(s): Metcalf, Lalani. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.
Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.
Bill highlights
Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.
- HB3204 updates the law governing Sam Houston State University's Polytechnic College and opens specified education and workforce programs to it.
- The act replaces the old Josey School of Vocational Education name and outdated trade-by-trade curriculum with short, intensive career and technical education leading to certificates defined by the Higher Education Coordinating Board.
What does it do?
HB3204 updates the law governing Sam Houston State University’s Polytechnic College and opens specified education and workforce programs to it. The college remains a division of the university, administered by its president and governed by the Texas State University System regents. The governor signed May 26, 2025; the act took effect September 1, 2025. Final law; history.
The act replaces the old Josey School of Vocational Education name and outdated trade-by-trade curriculum with short, intensive career and technical education leading to certificates defined by the Higher Education Coordinating Board. It removes the old age/academic-qualification wording and prescribed nine-to-24-month course length. It also replaces the special tuition provision—including its $500 cap per nine-month scholastic year and associated scholarship language—with a requirement to fund the college in the same manner as a public state college. It does not itself set a new tuition amount or promise free tuition.
Three program changes have different purposes and timing:
- Texas Educational Opportunity Grants: The college becomes an eligible institution for grants beginning with the fall 2026 semester. Earlier terms remain under former law. This expands institutional eligibility; students must still qualify, and awards remain limited by available funding. Grant administration.
- Cybersecurity coursework: The college joins the institutions covered by the Coordinating Board’s work with the Department of Information Resources and credentialing organizations to develop cybersecurity certificate programs and courses. Section 61.09092.
- TRUE workforce grants: The college joins the Texas Reskilling and Upskilling through Education program beginning with grants for fall 2025. These grants support eligible education and workforce-training activities, using appropriated or otherwise available funds; inclusion is not an automatic award. TRUE program.
What changed along the way?
There were no indexed floor amendments. The important changes came through the House committee substitute, not a floor amendment. Compared with the filed bill, the substitute updated the governing board’s name, removed the old age/academic-qualification wording, and used the broader Coordinating Board-defined career-and-technical certificate language instead of specifying occupational skills awards and level-one or level-two certificates.
The substitute also changed a requirement that the Coordinating Board recommend state-college-style funding into a direct requirement that the college be funded that way, notwithstanding other law. The House-passed, Senate-reported and final texts retained these changes. The two grant start dates were already in the filed proposal. Version index; amendment index.
For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.
Official bill versions
Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.
Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?
The college and qualifying students may gain access to funding and workforce-training opportunities; employers may benefit from relevant certificate programs. Actual student aid, program offerings and costs depend on eligibility, available money and implementation. Removing the old tuition provision is not a guarantee that any particular student’s tuition will rise or fall.
The May 1 fiscal note anticipated no significant state impact in the 2026–27 budget period and no significant local-government impact. At the time of that estimate, the university system reported no students enrolled in the program and plans for three small programs. Future costs depend on enrollment, formula funding and students’ grant eligibility. Those were the fiscal note’s assumptions, not a verified statement about enrollment today. The bill itself makes no appropriation.
Review boundary: All seven sections, the committee changes and the referenced program purposes were checked. This is an explanation of legal eligibility and funding rules, not a claim that a grant has been awarded or a particular course is currently offered.
Official sources
- Bill history and latest recorded action
- Bill versions, analyses and fiscal notes
- Action history and votes
- Amendment index
Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.
