(a) Notwithstanding any other law, no mandatory systemwide fees or tuition of any kind shall be required of or collected by the Regents of the University of California, the Board of Directors of the Hastings College of the Law, the Trustees of the California State University, or the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges from any surviving spouse or surviving child of a deceased person who met all of the following requirements:
(1) He or she was a resident of this state.
(2) He or she was employed by a public agency or was a contractor, or an employee of a contractor, performing services for a public agency.
(3) His or her principal duties consisted of active law enforcement service or active fire suppression and prevention. This section shall not apply to a person whose principal duties were clerical, even if he or she was subject to occasional call or was occasionally called upon to perform duties within the scope of active law enforcement or active fire suppression and prevention.
(4) He or she was killed in the performance of active law enforcement or active fire suppression and prevention duties, died as a result of an accident or an injury caused by external violence or physical force incurred in the performance of his or her active law enforcement or active fire suppression and prevention duties, or died as a result of an industrial injury or illness arising out of and in the course of active law enforcement or fire suppression and prevention duties.
(b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), a person who qualifies for the waiver of mandatory systemwide fees and tuition under this section as a surviving child of a contractor, or of an employee of a contractor, who performed services for a public agency shall, in addition to the requirements set forth in subdivision (a), meet both of the following requirements:
(1) Enrollment as an undergraduate student at a campus of the University of California or the California State University or as a student at a community college campus.
(2) Documentation that his or her annual income, including the value of any support received from a parent, does not exceed the maximum household income and asset level for an applicant for a Cal Grant B award, as set forth in Section 69432.7.
(c) As used in this section:
(1) “Contractor” or “employee of a contractor” does not include a security guard or security officer, as defined in Section 7582.1 of the Business and Professions Code.
(2) “Public agency” means the state or any city, county, city and county, district, or other local authority or public body of or within the state.
(3) “Surviving child” means either of the following:
(A) A surviving natural or adopted child of the deceased person.
(B) A surviving stepchild who meets both of the following requirements:
(i) He or she was living or domiciled with the deceased person at the time of his or her death.
(ii) He or she was claimed on the tax form most recently filed by the deceased person prior to that person’s death, or he or she received 50 percent or more of his or her support from that deceased person in the tax year immediately preceding the death of the deceased person, or both.
(Amended by Stats. 2016, Ch. 435, Sec. 1. (AB 2164) Effective January 1, 2017.)
Last modified: October 25, 2018