Tuition Exemption for Firefighters vs Peace Officers

[sanantone]

In Texas, peace officers are able to take undergraduate, criminal justice-related courses for free at any public college or university in the state. I looked at the list of qualifying degrees at each school. The choices are mostly limited to criminal justice and law enforcement. What's odd is that some community colleges list their basic peace officer course, but licensed peace officers have already been to the police academy. There are a couple of forensics programs at community colleges, but they aren't available online. Reserve police officers (volunteers) do not qualify for tuition exemption.

College For All Texans: Exemption for Peace Officers Enrolled in Law Enforcement or Criminal Justice Courses

Also in Texas, certified firefighters can also go to college for free. Unlike with peace officers, volunteer firefighters do qualify for tuition exemption if they have been volunteering for at least a year. Also unlike with the peace officer tuition exemption, firefighters can take graduate courses for free. The programs are supposed to be related to fire science, but the State of Texas has a very broad definition for what is considered related to fire science. Looking at the list of pre-approved programs, you'll see emergency medicine/paramedic studies, political science, industrial safety/safety engineering, chemistry, nursing, instructional training and design, respiratory therapy, environmental health, Doctor of Pharmacy, public affairs/public administration, business administration, and a basic peace officer academy in addition to fire science and emergency services management.

College For All Texans: Firefighters Taking Fire Science Courses

EMT/paramedic programs make since, but most of the other ones are just weird and prepare people for careers outside of firefighting and emergency management. An MPA can be useful to a fire service supervisor/manager, but it's also useful for a supervisory police officer. I'm trying to think why they would offer graduate courses to firefighters, but not police officers. My guess is that it would be too expensive to offer them to peace officers since there are a lot more of them. This also might be a way of getting people to volunteer as firefighters since there is a shortage of them. I can't think of a good reason to offer them programs such as Doctor of Pharmacy and instructional training and design. Oh, well. It's time for me to sign up as a volunteer firefighter.

[clep3705]

The only school with nursing courses approved under these bills is Texas A&M International University and that is limited to the BSN program. The only PharmD program is at TSU.

http://www.collegeforalltexans.com/index...2B17C47936

General education courses are not eligible for the tuition exemption unless they are specifically listed as part of an approved fire science program (which includes the one BSN program and the one PharmD program).

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/billlookup/...ll=HB2347#

http://www.legis.state.tx.us/billlookup/...ll=HB2013# "The bill requires the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to adopt rules governing the granting or denial of an exemption and a uniform listing of degree programs covered by the exemption. "

This is from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board:

"You will need to contact the college are university where you are going to attend to see if the courses are offered as part of a Fire Science Curriculum." That seems like a lot of effort for a nursing school or pharmacy school to go to for an extremely small potential pool of students.

[sanantone]

There are no gen ed courses for graduate programs.

There was an incident decided by the Attorney General. A firefighter was refused an exemption for an MPA program by the school. I'm assuming they had not submitted it for pre-approval. They told the firefighter that public administration is not fire science-related. The Attorney General said that it is. What I've gathered from this case is that schools do not have the discretion to deny students tuition exemption for a type of program that has already been determined to be fire science-related by THECB.

You can find a link to a PDF of the AG's clarification here.
http://www.texedex.com/tuition_exemptions/firefit

[clep3705]

The Texas Attorney General's clarification specifically defines firefighters as "permanent, full-time fire department employees who are not secretaries, stenographers, clerks, budget analysts, or similar support staff persons or other administrative employees" and the word volunteer never appears in the ruling.

I am unpersuaded that a volunteer firefighter regardless of level or type of certification is entitled to tuition relief.

[sanantone]

The Texas Attorney General's clarification specifically defines firefighters as "permanent, full-time fire department employees who are not secretaries, stenographers, clerks, budget analysts, or similar support staff persons or other administrative employees" and the word volunteer never appears in the ruling.

I am unpersuaded that a volunteer firefighter regardless of level or type of certification is entitled to tuition relief.

There's no clarification needed on that. It's clearly stated in the law.

THECB - Fire Science and Peace Officer Tuition Exemption Program

The legislation was updated during the 81st session to include peace officers and volunteer firefighters. The 81st session was in 2009; the AG's opinion was in 2006.

[clep3705]

Thanks for the additional detail.

[clep3705]

Although one nursing program and one PharmD program are listed, there is no motivation for a school to classify a nursing or PharmD program as fire science because they will lose revenue. An administrative burden to lose money is not something schools want to do despite these two exceptions. What a firefighter cannot do is go to a pharmacy school other than TSU and demand free tuition elsewhere. Just because TSU declared PharmD as fire science doesn't mean UT Austin must provide free PharmD tuition to a firefighter. It is up to each individual school to declare a course of study as fire science and do without the revenue.

This is a great find if someone is interested in one of the listed programs. If a student wants to enroll elsewhere, it may be a losing uphill fight.

[sanantone]

Although one nursing program and one PharmD program are listed, there is no motivation for a school to classify a nursing or PharmD program as fire science because they will lose revenue. An administration burden to lose money is not something schools want to do despite these two exceptions. What a firefighter cannot do is go to a pharmacy school other than TSU and demand free tuition elsewhere. Just because TSU declared PharmD as fire science doesn't mean UT Austin must provide free PharmD tuition to a firefighter. It is up to each individual school to declare a course of study as fire science and do without the revenue.

This is a great find if someone is interested in one of the listed programs. If a student wants to enroll elsewhere, it may by a losing uphill fight.

The schools have no incentive to grant any exemption. The most expensive exemption is for children of veterans. If I remember correctly, this has cost schools in Texas almost $200 million in less than 10 years, and Texas does not give the school additional money to cover this exemption. A firefighter did successfully go to a school that did not have public administration listed and challenged it with the AG. If you thoroughly read the AG's opinion, it was said that students have been erroneously denied tuition exemption for programs such as safety engineering. Just like with the law on transferring the core and certain major courses, schools are obligated by law to grant a tuition exemption for anything related to fire science, emergency management, public administration, and emergency medicine. I don't think pharmacy is related to emergency medicine, but that means it shouldn't be listed at all.

[clep3705]

This is from a registrar at a Texas state funded university:

"The exemption is based on specific courses, not an entire program necessarily, and only the academic experts over that area can make that determination."