"Somehow, until this year, state officials didn't realize it was too costly to continue the prepaid tuition plan's full-refund guarantee of cash-outs based on current averages of tuition and required fees. A parent who paid into the fund just over $8,000 in 1996 for an infant to attend a four-year public college would be due a full refund of more than $27,000 at today's state university prices," Houston Chronicle reports. "So in late May, around the time the Legislature gave up on any of the more than a dozen bills seeking to put some price controls on tuition becoming law, the prepaid plan's oversight board led by the Comptroller Susan Combs took action. ... The board decided it's in 'the program's best interests' to end as of Nov. 1 the full-refund policy for canceled contracts. Under the new rules, what you paid into the fund is what you get back, minus a $25 cancellation fee and a $3 per month administration fees for every month you had money in the fund."