Selected State Legislative Enactments Affecting Community Colleges

Scope and limitations:  What bills are included?

The state bills listed here are those that have a bearing on community colleges and that were enacted into law. They were identified through searches of state legislative Web sites. Most of these Web sites offer subject indexes to bills or enactments, and these indexes were used to identify bills related to community colleges specifically or to postsecondary education covering both two-year and four-year institutions. If a state’s legislative Web site did not provide a subject index, a key word search was used, employing the terms "college," "student," "tuition," and 'postsecondary." Finally, if neither an index nor a key-word-search engine was available, relevant bills were identified by physically scanning the titles of enacted legislation. (Specific sources, by states, are listed in appendices to the bill compilations.)

Each entry in this compilation includes a bill number, the Internet address at which the bill can be found, and an annotation indicating what the bill is about. The annotations are either excerpts from the bills themselves or summaries prepared by legislative staff members and posted on state legislative Web sites; Internet addresses are provided for the latter. Here is a sample entry:

While this listing is compiled as an aid to those seeking information on bills affecting community colleges, it is limited in several ways:

• The listing includes only those bills that mention community colleges or that deal directly with postsecondary education issues affecting community colleges. Obviously, this eliminates bills that may regulate community college action without mentioning the colleges or postsecondary education specifically. For example, bills regulating the purchasing and contracting practices of state agencies generally without reference to postsecondary institutions are not included, even if the bills will affect administrative practice at these institutions.
• While some bills specifically deal with community colleges, others focus on higher education generally. These latter bills were included if the compiler felt that that they might affect community colleges as well as other postsecondary institutions. But it is possible that community colleges were not, in fact, the target of these bills.
• This listing does not include appropriations bills for capital projects or for the authorization of bonds for capital projects. Nor does the listing include bills related to state retirement systems for college personnel.
• New York, unlike other states, does not make archived legislative information available through the Internet. Only bills for current years are available. At the time the listing for 2002, 2003, and 2004 was compiled (the fall of 2004), New York’s legislative Web site provided information only on bills enacted in 2003 and 2004. Therefore, this listing does not include New York bills enacted in 2002.
• Internet addresses (URL’s) provided in the bill entries were current as of January 2005 (for the '02, '03, and '04 listing) and March 2006 (for the '05 listing). However, these URL's may change over time. If this is the case, readers should search for the bills directly on the states’ legislative Web sites. A continually updated listing of these Web sites is maintained by the Prairienet Community Network.
• Appropriations bills for the general operation of community colleges are listed without annotations under the heading "Appropriations." But they may also be included with annotations under different subject headings if they include provisos that go beyond explanations of what monies are to support and how colleges are to distribute and account for funds.
• The annotations in this listing are simply indicators of what the bills entail; they are not bill summaries. Furthermore, neither the annotations provided here nor the full-text bills available on state legislative Web sites are legal documents. Readers who wish to view legally warranted versions of state legislation should secure bone fide paper copies of enacted bills from the states’ respective legislatures.

Please feel free to send comments or criticisms. They will help in the further development of this listing.