AUSTIN (WBAP/KLIF 24/7 NEWS) — The Texas Senate will take up a bill that would reduce higher education benefits for veterans and their children.
http://www.wbap.com/2015/04/24/bill-to-cut-education-benefits-for-veterans-goes-to-tx-senate/

SAN ANTONIO - Local veterans gathered to voice their frustration about proposed legislation to reduce key state benefits tied to education.

Veterans met outside VFW Post 76 to denounce a bill cutting free tuition hours at state-funded campuses for dependents or a surviving spouse. Under the Hazlewood Legacy Act they currently receive 150 hours. The proposal slashes that number to 60 hours. Another restriction would require those reduced hours to be used within 15 years of a veteran's honorable discharge from service.

“That is a gross injustice only those legislators who did not have time to serve our country in the military uniform would come up with. That needs to be washed out completely," says Placido Salazar, a Vietnam War veteran.

The bill is in the Senate for a vote.

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House delays vote on cutting veteran education benefits

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A Texas lawmaker has pushed back a vote on a much-watched bill that would make cuts to a free college tuition program for veterans’ children.

The bill - meant to address the program’s rising costs -was briefly discussed Friday. But Republican Rep. John Zerwas postponed debate until Sunday, citing the measure’s “complexity and emotion.”

Before floor discussion even began, Democratic Rep. Joe Farias made an impassioned plea opposing Zerwas’ bill. The Vietnam veteran told colleagues, “Think twice, and open your heart to those that have endured the most.”

Already Senate-approved, the bill tightens veteran eligibility requirements, cuts the number of free tuition hours and stipulates that benefits expire.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/22/texas-house-mulls-cutting-popular-veteran-educatio/

An effort to overhaul the state’s tuition-for-veterans program dissolved in the Texas House on Sunday, with the sponsor of the bill offering an amendment that would leave the program virtually unchanged from its current form.

The action by Rep. John Zerwas, R-Richmond, would gut Senate Bill 1735, which would have made many children of veterans ineligible for free tuition. Zerwas had been pushing the bill at the request of universities, which have said that the "legacy" benefit was costing them too much.

But after more than two hours of debate on the day before Memorial Day, the bill was temporarily pulled down because of a procedural challenge. And while the House moved on to other business, Zerwas notified opponents of the bill that he had relented. SB 1735 didn't appear to have the votes, he said.

“My sense from the House votes is that it was pretty clear that they didn’t want to change the legacy program,” Zerwas said.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/24/h..._eid=f14c8116c8