Topeka ? A bill aimed at helping college students who fall below minimum admissions standards to succeed and also halting state funding of remedial courses was signed into law by Gov. Sam Brownback .

The measure prohibits state funding for remedial courses at Kansas University and other regents universities. But the ban wouldn’t take effect until Aug. 15, 2015, and state funding would still be allowed for students in the military service, 21 years of age or older and international students who need remedial English.

In addition, after that effective date, universities could provide the courses from other funding sources if they wanted.

KU offers one remedial course, intermediate algebra, which has an average of 900 students enrolled each fall.

The new law would also set up an individual plan for each student who is admitted to a regents university through the “exception window.”

Schools are allowed to admit 10 percent of their students who fail to meet minimum admission standards.

The measure reduces the exception percentages at KU, Kansas State and Wichita State to 5 percent of the freshman class, and leaves it at 10 percent at Emporia State, Fort Hays State and Pittsburg State.

But in practice all the schools are using the exception window at a lower rate than those set in the law. Emporia State is at 8.1 percent; Pittsburg State, 7.1 percent; and Fort Hays State, 6.8 percent. Kansas State was a 3.7 percent; Wichita State at 1.6 percent; and KU had the lowest rate of admitting students under the exception at 0.4 percent.