Hawaii-2010-HB908-Amended

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that there is a need to require the University of Hawaii system to provide higher education tuition waivers to students who are "Hawaiian" or "native Hawaiian," as defined in section 10-2, Hawaii Revised Statutes.

Native Hawaiian students comprise approximately twenty-six per cent of Hawaii's public school population and more than eighty-five per cent of those native Hawaiian students finish high school. However, while about half of all native Hawaiian high school graduates go on to attend college, native Hawaiians have the lowest college graduation rates of all ethnic groups in Hawaii. Of those who are able to attend college, far fewer actually graduate with a college degree than students from any other ethnic group in the state. According to the University of Hawaii's institutional research office, native Hawaiians account for only fourteen per cent of the total University of Hawaii student population, a figure that includes all native Hawaiians attending the system's three four-year and seven two-year campuses. Further, while more than eighty per cent of the University of Hawaii system's non-native-Hawaiian students return for a second year of college, the percentage of native Hawaiian students returning to college for a second year is nearly ten per cent lower.

The low college matriculation and retention rates of native Hawaiians throughout the University of Hawaii system seriously impact their ability to complete college and earn a degree. Nationwide, more native Hawaiians have dropped out of college than have earned either a two-year associate or a four-year baccalaureate degree. According to the 2000 United States census, even though twenty-five per cent of all native Hawaiians have earned some college credits, most have not completed their undergraduate degrees, and only fifteen per cent of all native Hawaiians have earned at least a bachelor's degree.

The statistics are even more troubling for native Hawaiians attempting to attain the highest academic degrees in their fields, including master's, professional, and doctorate degrees. Only 3.2 per cent of native Hawaiians statewide have earned a graduate degree of any kind, compared with 8.4 per cent of all Hawaii residents and 8.9 per cent of the total United States population. Further, only 3.6 per cent of the current doctoral candidates at the University of Hawaii are native Hawaiian and nearly seventy per cent of them do not receive any type of financial aid or tuition waivers.

The academic stress of earning a college degree is dramatically increased for many native Hawaiian students by high levels of economic stress. Statistically, Hawaiians attending the University of Hawaii are, on average, far more affected by negative economic indicators than students from other ethnic groups. For example, native Hawaiian students who do complete their degrees take, on the average, a full year longer to do so than students of other ethnic groups and many native Hawaiian students must work full- or part-time while attempting to complete their college degrees. This slower-than-average completion rate is due primarily to the consequences of native Hawaiians' poor access to available socio-economic resources, combined with their ongoing need to produce income for themselves and their families, and Hawaii's high cost of living.

The low numbers of native Hawaiians with college and professional degrees seriously affects the ability of Hawaii's indigenous people to participate in the State's higher education system as professors, deans, administrators, and policy makers. At the University of Hawaii at Manoa, only four per cent of all faculty positions are held by native Hawaiians and less than one per cent of permanently tenured positions are held by native Hawaiians.

The purpose of this Act is to require the University of Hawaii to provide higher education tuition waivers for all enrolled Hawaiian and native Hawaiian students who demonstrate financial need. The academic and economic support provided by the tuition waivers can have far-reaching positive consequences for the State as a whole. As more Hawaiians and native Hawaiians are able to earn college degrees, more Hawaiians and native Hawaiians will be able to pursue the highest levels of academic and professional achievement. Through their participation in networks of civic responsibility in the professional, academic, business, and other arenas, Hawaiian and native Hawaiian graduates of the University of Hawaii system will be able to contribute more effectively to the economic and social health of the State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian people.

SECTION 2. Chapter 304A, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:

"§304A- Tuition waivers for native Hawaiians and Hawaiians. Any law to the contrary notwithstanding, the board of regents or its designated representatives shall grant a waiver of all tuition to each and every student enrolled at any of the university's ten campuses who is native Hawaiian or Hawaiian as defined in section 10-2, and demonstrates financial need; provided that the student's birth certificate shall constitute conclusive proof that the student is native Hawaiian or Hawaiian as the case may be."

SECTION 3. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	908
TWENTY-FIFTH LEGISLATURE, 2009		H.D. 1
STATE OF HAWAII