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VETERAN SUES UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS FOR FREE
TUITION -- Retired military nurse says
executive
MBA program qualifies for tuition exemption.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/
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Story below:
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Vet sues UTA for free tuition
Retired military nurse says executive program qualifies for exemption
BY HOLLY K. HACKER / The Dallas Morning News
hhacker@dallasnews.com
The executive MBA program at the University of Texas at Arlington costs
$55,000. But a retired Air Force nurse says it shouldn't cost her a
dime.
That's because the nurse, Catherine Scott-Nixon of Fort Worth, is a
military veteran. And under state law, eligible veterans don't have to
pay tuition or most fees at public universities.
Ms. Scott-Nixon has sued UTA and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating
Board, saying her waiver was denied because the eMBA program doesn't get
state funds.
"The law provides veterans with these benefits," she said Thursday. "But
they don't want vets to be exempted from these programs because they'll
lose money."
The lawsuit asking that Ms. Scott-Nixon's tuition be waived was filed
Wednesday in Travis County district court.
Bob Wright, a UTA spokesman, said the school has not been served with
the lawsuit yet. "We've never heard of this [lawsuit] and we don't know
anything about it," he said.
Mr. Wright confirmed that Ms. Scott-Nixon's request was denied and said
that UTA was following state policy.
Lora Weber, an administrator at the state Coordinating Board, said the
agency is referring the lawsuit to the Texas attorney general. She could
not comment on the specifics of the UTA program but said tuition
exemption applies only to programs that receive state funding, and many
executive programs – designed for working adults with several years of
business experience – don't fall in that category.
But Ms. Scott-Nixon and her attorney, Mark Heidenheimer, disagree. The
exemption doesn't apply to continuing education programs, but eMBAs
don't fall into that category, Mr. Heidenheimer said.
The Hazlewood Act says that veterans who served active military duty and
were honorably discharged can get tuition waived for up to 150 credit
hours. The law, enacted in 1929, applies to vets from the
Spanish-American War on. It specifically mentions the Grenada and
Lebanon era in the early 1980s, when Ms. Scott-Nixon served at Andrews
Air Force Base.
Ms. Scott-Nixon said she's a registered nurse at Harris Methodist
Southwest Hospital and wants to move into management. And for that, she
needs more education, she said. She said she thinks UTA has a great eMBA
program – one of the best around. The program begins this month.
Last year, nearly 9,000 veterans received more than $14 million in
tuition breaks under the state law. A few weeks ago, two Texas veterans
filed a federal lawsuit because they were denied benefits. The vets were
legal residents when they entered the military and later became U.S.
citizens. The law, however, applies only to those who were citizens when
they began their service.
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Larry Scott --
