Report Title:

University of Hawaii; Tuition Waivers; Hawaiian Students

Description:

Provides that University of Hawaii students of Hawaiian ancestry be awarded partial to full tuition waivers, subject to admissions requirements and maintenance of satisfactory grade levels; provides for a legislative reference bureau study to expand its 1991 report to update its findings on tuition waivers for Hawaiian students and address legal concerns surrounding these issues. (SD2)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

1335

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

H.D. 3

STATE OF HAWAII

S.D. 2


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to tuition waivers.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The purpose of this Act is to expand the current tuition waiver program within the University of Hawaii system. Part I of this Act amends the Hawaii Revised Statutes to allow the proposed tuition waivers. Part II of this Act requires the legislative reference bureau to update its 1991 report entitled "Tuition Waivers for Hawaiian Students in Higher Education", to address current legal concerns regarding native Hawaiian programs, the Akaka bill in Congress, alternative sources of funding, and the standards set by the United States Supreme Court ruling on the University of Michigan's affirmative action program.

PART I

SECTION 2. The legislature finds that it is increasingly difficult for students of Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian ancestry to afford college tuition. Furthermore, many Hawaiians are forced to live in low-income housing and to receive aid from the State, the federal government, or both. Like other indigenous peoples who have lost their sovereignty and have become disenfranchised in their homeland, many Hawaiians suffer from depressed socioeconomic conditions, including inadequate housing, poor health, and limited access to health care and education.

Although the University of Hawaii (UH) has celebrated its ninety-second year of existence with a student body that has grown and changed dramatically, one consistent fact is that Hawaiian students continue to be underrepresented within the UH system. While Hawaiians represent twenty-seven per cent of the students in public schools across the State, only fourteen per cent of UH students are Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian. Furthermore, twenty-five per cent of Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian students within the UH system drop out within the first two years for reasons that include rising tuition.

In 1991, the UH board of regents adopted a master plan that supported efforts to increase the proportion of Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian students within the university system. The master plan also called upon the university "...to actively support the preservation and teaching of Hawaiian language and culture."

Within its systemwide network, including instructional buildings and campuses, marine research facilities, demonstration farms and agricultural stations, faculty and student housing, the Haleakala Observatory, and the Mauna Kea Science Reserve, the University of Hawaii now controls sixteen thousand acres of lands designated under section 5(f) of the Admission Act to provide support for the betterment of the conditions of native Hawaiians. The dollar value for the use of these lands over the past ninety-two years is so great that it is almost impossible to calculate. However, it is very clear that the indigenous peoples of Hawaii have never received compensation or benefits from UH in return for its use of these ceded lands.

Of a total of four thousand four hundred seventy-eight tuition waivers awarded on the Manoa campus during fiscal year 2000-2001, only one hundred twenty-seven tuition waivers (or 2.8 per cent) were awarded to Hawaiian students under the board of regents-approved systemwide tuition waiver category for Hawaiians in financial need. An estimated one thousand tuition waivers are provided annually to native Hawaiians under all categories of tuition waivers. UH has provided information stating there are one thousand five hundred students of Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian ancestry enrolled at the Manoa campus alone. Native Hawaiian students attending UH-Manoa each currently pay more than $3,000 annually, or, collectively, almost $5,000,000 for their higher education.

Consistent with federal regulations for financial assistance to students in need, including Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians, financial assistance through the UH financial aid office is reduced proportionately when a tuition waiver or other financial assistance is awarded through an outside source such as the Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, or the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs.

The legislature believes that it is necessary to offer tuition waivers to qualified students within the UH system who are of Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian ancestry and who could not otherwise afford to attend any college within the UH system.

The purpose of this part is to require UH to award partial to full tuition waivers to all native Hawaiian and Hawaiian students throughout the UH system.

SECTION 3. Chapter 304, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:

"§304-   Hawaiians; tuition waivers. (a) The University of Hawaii shall waive fifty per cent of tuition fees for all native Hawaiian and Hawaiian students. It shall further waive an additional fifty per cent to one hundred per cent of the remaining tuition fees for native Hawaiian and Hawaiian students who demonstrate a need for financial assistance.

(b) Tuition waiver eligibility shall be dependent on meeting admissions requirements and on maintaining satisfactory grade levels.

(c) As used in this section, unless the context otherwise requires:

"Native Hawaiian" or "Hawaiian" means any descendant of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands that exercised sovereignty and lived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778."

PART II

SECTION 4. The legislative reference bureau shall conduct a study on tuition waivers for Hawaiians within the University of Hawaii system. The study shall include the following:

(1) Updating, as necessary, the legislative reference bureau's 1991 study, "Tuition Waivers for Hawaiian Students in Higher Education";

(2) Addressing current legal concerns, as they relate to tuition waivers, including:

(A) Legal challenges to the native Hawaiian programs;

(B) The Akaka bill in Congress;

(C) Alternative sources of funding; and

(D) The standards set by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the University of Michigan's affirmative action program; and

(3) Establishing waiver criteria based on financial need.

The legislative reference bureau shall submit a report of any findings and recommendations to the legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular session of 2005.

SECTION 5. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2010.