SECTION 1. Section 19 of chapter 15A of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2012 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting, after the seventh paragraph, the following new paragraph:-

The program shall provide tuition and mandatory fee waivers to any resident of the commonwealth who has been designated as a valedictorian by a public or private high school within the commonwealth. The tuition and mandatory fee waivers shall be provided to a student for not more than four years following enrollment as a student at a qualifying public institution. If the student designated as a valedictorian does not utilize the valedictorian tuition and fee waiver, the tuition and fee waiver shall not be offered to the salutatorian. The commonwealth, not the institutions of public higher education, shall bear the cost of such tuition and fee waivers for Massachusetts valedictorians.

SECTION 2. The tuition and fee waivers of this act shall take effect and be provided to Massachusetts valedictorians who graduate from a Massachusetts public or private high school beginning in or after 2016.