Postsecondary education: student financial aid dependency status: juveniles.

Assembly Member Ahrens frames this measure as a way to align California’s postsecondary financial aid processes with federal guidance on unusual circumstances, by creating a formal pathway for dependency-status adjustments that would apply across public universities and colleges in the state. The core change would authorize financial aid administrators to accept sworn attestations from authorized representatives of local educational agencies, county child welfare departments, or probation departments as sufficient documentation for dependency-adjustment purposes, alongside limited additional information that may verify a student’s foster- or dependent-care history. The proposal also directs the University of California to adopt a implementing policy, signaling a specific administrative role for one segment of the system.

The measure defines key terms and establishes how the new process would function. An “adjustment for unusual circumstances” would correspond to the federal concept tied to dependency status for financial aid purposes, with an “applicant” meaning someone applying to or enrolled in CSU, CCC, or UC. A “sworn attestation” would be a perjury-signed statement from an LEA, county child welfare department, or probation department that identifies the attester, confirms service or support to the student, acknowledges the student’s parental relationship as defined in federal regulations, and asserts that contact with a parent would be impossible or risky. Financial aid administrators would accept this attestation as sufficient documentation under federal authority, while still having the option to consider other adequate documentation.

A companion provision in the Welfare and Institutions Code creates a parallel avenue for information sharing to support attendance at higher education. Upon request, county agencies could provide either the sworn attestation described above or a limited set of identifying information, including the student’s name, date of birth, relevant dates of jurisdiction or care, and a statement of foster youth or ward status. Information received by the institution would be confidential, restricted to staff directly facilitating the student’s admission, enrollment, or financial aid, and would not be disseminated beyond those limits. The confidential file would be kept for three years after the student’s last term of enrollment and then destroyed; intentional violations of confidentiality would constitute a misdemeanor, with a fine up to five hundred dollars. The definition of “institution of higher education” encompasses both public and privately licensed postsecondary institutions operating in California, which broadens the potential recipients of these disclosures.

Implementation and governance considerations accompany the provisions. The bill reiterates privacy safeguards by requiring use of information strictly for the purposes specified, with a notwithstanding clause to permit disclosures despite certain privacy restrictions to support dependents and wards. It also frames a funding question: while the enactment includes no general reimbursement for new local-mandated duties arising from the act’s creation of new crimes or changed penalties, it contemplates the possibility of mandated-cost reimbursement if the state mandates costs beyond those crimes or penalties, to be determined under the existing state-mandates process. In practice, local educational agencies and county departments would need to establish attestation workflows, maintain confidential files, and train staff on perjury implications and retention/destruction timelines, whereas colleges and universities would adjust intake and aid-processing procedures to accept attestations and manage confidential data in accordance with the statutory framework.