Requires all UH students of Hawaiian descent to receive partial to full tuition waivers.

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that it is becoming increasingly difficult for students of Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian ancestry to afford college tuition. As a result, many Hawaiians are forced to live in low-income housing and to receive aid from either the state or federal government. Like other indigenous peoples who have lost their sovereignty and have become disenfranchised in their homeland, many Hawaiians suffer through depressed socioeconomic conditions, including inadequate housing, poor health, and limited access to health care and education.

Although the University of Hawaii now celebrates its ninety-third year of existence with a student body that has grown and changed dramatically, one consistent fact is that Hawaiian students continue to be underrepresented within the university system. While Hawaiians represent twenty-seven per cent of the students in public schools across the state, less than fifteen per cent of the students at the university are Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian. In fact, within the ten-campus system of the University of Hawaii, less than seven thousand of the more than fifty thousand students are of Hawaiian ancestry. Moreover, twenty-five per cent of Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian students within the university system drop out within the first two years for reasons that include rising tuition.

In 1991, the board of regents of the University of Hawaii adopted a master plan that supported efforts to increase the proportion of Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian students within the university system. The master plan also called upon the university, "...to actively support the preservation and teaching of Hawaiian language and culture."

Since the evolution of a society free from the ills of hatred, prejudice, and greed is dependent upon the commitment to promote the proliferation of higher education to our youth and the ability of many indigenous peoples to achieve the goal of obtaining a higher education is hindered by forces beyond their control, many Hawaiian organizations continue to support numerous efforts to increase the proportion of Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian students at the University of Hawaii, including full tuition waivers. In fact, the immediate goal of these organizations is to increase the number of Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian students throughout the university system so that they make up approximately twenty per cent of the student population. To achieve this goal, the total Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian student population throughout the university system would need to be approximately ten thousand students, an increase of approximately three thousand seven hundred students. It has been estimated, based upon a five-year college plan and increasing tuition, that tuition fees for three thousand seven hundred additional students would equal $42,800,000 between 2006 and 2010.

Through its system-wide network, including instructional buildings and campuses, marine research facilities, demonstration farms and agricultural stations, faculty and student housing, the Haleakala Observatory, and the Mauna Kea Science Reserve, the university now controls sixteen thousand acres of section 5(f) ceded lands on all islands. The dollar value for the use of these lands over the past ninety-three years is so great that it is almost impossible to calculate. However, it is very clear that the indigenous peoples of Hawaii have never received compensation or benefits from the university in return for its use of these ceded lands.

Of a total allotment of four thousand four hundred seventy-eight tuition waivers awarded on the Manoa campus during fiscal year 2000-2001, an allocation of only one hundred twenty-seven tuition waivers were awarded to Hawaiian students under the board of regents-approved system-wide tuition waiver category for financially needy Hawaiians. An estimated one thousand tuition waivers are provided annually to native Hawaiians under all categories of tuition waivers. The University of Hawaii has provided information stating that there are approximately one thousand six hundred students of Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian ancestry who are enrolled on the Manoa campus alone. Native Hawaiian students at the Manoa campus are each currently paying more than $3,000 annually, or collectively, almost $5,000,000 for their higher education.

Consistent with federal regulations, financial assistance to needy students, including Hawaiian and part-Hawaiians, through the University of Hawaii financial aid office is reduced proportionately when a tuition waiver or other financial assistance is awarded through an outside source such as the Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate, the office of Hawaiian affairs, or the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs.

The legislature believes that it is necessary to offer tuition waivers to those qualified students within the University of Hawaii system who are of Hawaiian or part-Hawaiian ancestry, and who could otherwise not afford to attend any college within the university system.

The purpose of this Act is to require the University of Hawaii to award partial to full tuition waivers to all native Hawaiian and Hawaiian students throughout the university system.

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

"§304- Hawaiians; tuition waivers. (a) The University of Hawaii shall waive fifty per cent of tuition fees for all native Hawaiian and Hawaiian students. It shall further waive an additional fifty per cent to one hundred per cent of the remaining tuition fees for native Hawaiian and Hawaiian students who demonstrate a need for financial assistance.

(b) Tuition waiver eligibility shall be dependent on meeting admissions requirements and maintaining satisfactory grade levels.

(c) As used in this section, unless the context otherwise requires:

"Native Hawaiian" or "Hawaiian" means any descendant of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands that exercised sovereignty and lived in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778."

SECTION 3. New statutory material is underscored.

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