BILL ANALYSIS Ó Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair AB 2478 (Hayashi) - Student residency requirements: Veterans. Amended: August 6, 2012 Policy Vote: Education 8-0 Urgency: No Mandate: Yes Hearing Date: August 16, 2012 Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-Hernandez SUSPENSE FILE. Bill Summary: AB 2478 provides that a California Community College (CCC) student who was a member of the Armed Forces stationed in California for more than one year immediately prior to being discharged, is exempt from paying nonresident fees for up to one year, if he or she files an affidavit with the community college stating an intent to establish California residency, as specified. Fiscal Impact: Significant revenue loss to the CCCs, and cost pressure to backfill from the General Fund. See staff comments. Background: Existing law establishes uniform residency requirements for purposes of determining the amount of fees to be paid by students at the University of California, the California State University, and CCC and establishes various exceptions to these residency requirements, including the following: 1) A member of the Armed Forces who is stationed in the state on active duty, except a member assigned for educational purposes. (Education Code § 68075) 2) A member of the Armed Forces who is transferred to another state but continuously enrolled at a college in California. (EC § 68075) 3) A student who is a dependent of a member of the Armed Forces stationed in this state on active duty. (EC § 68074) 4) A student dependent of a member of the Armed Forces may keep his or her resident classification until he or she has AB 2478 (Hayashi) Page 1 resided in the state for the minimum time necessary to become a resident in the event the member of the Armed Forces upon whom they are dependent is transferred outside of the state or retires as an active member of the Armed Forces. (EC § 68072) Proposed Law: AB 2478 exempts a CCC student who was a member of the Armed Forces stationed in California for more than one year immediately prior to being discharged, from paying nonresident fees for up to one year, if he or she files an affidavit with the community college stating his or her intent to establish California residency. Related Legislation: AB 2250 (Gaines) 2012 would provide that a student, or spouse of a student, who is an active member of the Armed Forces who has served at least 2 years, is exempt from paying nonresident fees and tuition at California's public postsecondary institutions. This measure was held under submission in the Assembly Appropriations committee. Staff Comments: This bill exempts veterans formerly stationed in California, who intend to reside in the state, from paying non-resident tuition at CCCs. Each affected veteran would be eligible to pay $46 per unit, rather than $244 per unit. For each full time student (enrolled in 30 units per academic year), the CCC would lose $5,920 in fee revenue. If even 10 students benefit from this bill, the resulting fee revenue loss would meet the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. The number of veterans who will be eligible to benefit from this bill is not known. There are currently approximately 44,000 veterans enrolled in CCCs statewide. If 1% of them were full-time students newly eligible to pay resident tuition rates, the resulting fee loss would be approximately $2.6 million. The CCC system budget assumes a certain amount of fee revenue each year. Fee revenue losses result in General Fund cost pressure to backfill the lost revenue in order to continue to provide necessary programs. This bill does not make affected veterans eligible for Board of Governors (BOG) fee waivers, because it only waives non-resident fees requirements, rather than providing that they meet residency requirements (needed for BOG fee waiver eligibility). AB 2478 (Hayashi) Page 2