STATE OF NEW YORK ________________________________________________________________________ 10356 IN ASSEMBLY April 29, 2020 ___________ Introduced by M. of A. EPSTEIN -- read once and referred to the Commit- tee on Higher Education AN ACT to amend the education law, in relation to excluding certain time periods from the maximum duration of tuition assistance program awards The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem- bly, do enact as follows: 1 Section 1. Subdivision 2 of section 667 of the education law, as 2 amended by chapter 376 of the laws of 2019, is amended to read as 3 follows: 4 2. Duration. No undergraduate shall be eligible for more than four 5 academic years of study, or five academic years if the program of study 6 normally requires five years. Students enrolled in a program of remedial 7 study, approved by the commissioner in an institution of higher educa- 8 tion and intended to culminate in a degree in undergraduate study shall, 9 for purposes of this section, be considered as enrolled in a program of 10 study normally requiring five years. An undergraduate student enrolled 11 in an eligible two year program of study approved by the commissioner 12 shall be eligible for no more than three academic years of study. An 13 undergraduate student enrolled in an approved two or four-year program 14 of study approved by the commissioner who must transfer to another 15 institution as a result of permanent college closure shall be eligible 16 for up to two additional semesters, or their equivalent, to the extent 17 credits necessary to complete his or her program of study were deemed 18 non-transferable from the closed institution or were deemed not applica- 19 ble to such student's program of study by the new institution. Any 20 semester, quarter, or term of attendance during which a student receives 21 any award under this article, after the effective date of the former 22 scholar incentive program and prior to academic year nineteen hundred 23 eighty-nine--nineteen hundred ninety, shall be counted toward the maxi- 24 mum term of eligibility for tuition assistance under this section, 25 except that any semester, quarter or term of attendance during which a 26 student received an award pursuant to section six hundred sixty-six of 27 this subpart shall be counted as one-half of a semester, quarter or 28 term, as the case may be, toward the maximum term of eligibility under EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets [] is old law to be omitted. LBD16198-02-0A. 10356 2 1 this section. Any semester, quarter or term of attendance during which a 2 student received an award pursuant to section six hundred sixty-seven-a 3 of this subpart shall not be counted toward the maximum term of eligi- 4 bility under this section. Any semester, quarter or term of attendance 5 during which a student cannot attend school in-person for two or more 6 weeks due to the closure of such educational institution as a result of 7 a declared state disaster emergency shall not be counted toward the 8 maximum term of eligibility under this section. 9 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.