Student Aid Commission: membership.

The bill was reformat from enrolled to chaptered format: removed Assembly/Senate passage dates and clerk signatures, added 'STATE OF CALIFORNIA AUTHENTICATED ELECTRONIC LEGAL MATERIAL' header, assigned Chapter 561, and recorded the Governor's approval date of October 10, 2025.

Page numbers shifted from 95 to 94 in the final chaptered version due to formatting differences between the two document layouts.

The entire provision (Section 92628) requesting the University of California to reduce annual administrative costs by at least 10 percent below 2025-26 levels before the 2028-29 fiscal year is deleted from the bill.

The Student Aid Commission total membership changes from 16 back to 15. The separate veteran appointee slot (subsection i, appointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs) is removed. Instead, one of the three public member positions will be replaced by a veteran community representative when that public member's term expires, creating a phased transition.

The veteran community representative does not take effect immediately but becomes operative only on the date a public member's term expires, at which point the commission shifts from three public members to two public members plus one veteran representative.

Gender-neutral language change: 'his or her' is replaced with 'the student member's' in the provision about student members graduating before their term ends.

The veteran-related public member on the Student Aid Commission no longer must be a veteran. The requirement was changed from 'a member who is a veteran has knowledge, expertise, or experience' to simply 'a member who has knowledge, expertise, or experience in accessing the educational benefits available to veterans.'

Removed the requirement that the veteran-related member must 'represent the veteran community,' further broadening eligibility for the seat.

Removed the 16th commission seat that would have been filled by a representative appointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, who had to be an active duty member of the Armed Forces, California National Guard, or reserve component, or a veteran. The commission remains at 15 members.

The bill's summary description was updated to reflect that it no longer increases commission membership to 16, and instead only replaces one public member with a qualified veteran representative when a term expires.

The veteran representative's qualification was strengthened from simply being 'a veteran of the Armed Forces of the United States and represents the veteran community' to requiring that the person 'has knowledge, expertise, or experience in accessing the educational benefits available to veterans of the Armed Forces of the United States and represents the veteran community.'

New Section 1 amends Education Code Section 69510 to increase Student Aid Commission membership from 15 to 16 by adding one representative appointed by the Department of Veterans Affairs who must be an active duty member of the US Armed Forces, California National Guard, a reserve component of the Armed Forces, or a veteran.

The original Section 1 (UC administrative expenditure reduction) is renumbered as Section 2 with no substantive change to its content.

In existing subsection (d) of Section 69510, the phrase 'his or her' was replaced with 'the student member's' for gender-neutral language.