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2024 Reparations Priority Bill Package: New California Laws Taking Effect

A guide to new laws addressing racial discrimination and civil rights inequities, sponsored by members of the California Legislative Black Caucus and stemming from the findings of the California Reparations Report

Bill Summary and Finding Legislative History

AB-2508 Student financial aid: Kids Investment and Development Savings (KIDS) Program: foster youth.

AB-2508 was introduced in February 2024 by Assemblymember Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) and signed into law on September 26, 2024 as 2024 Cal. Stat. ch. 622. The act amends Section 69996.9 of the Cal. Education Code, relating to student financial aid. You can find the bill text, bill analysis, and other documents relating to this law's legislative history on the California legislature's website. 

See our California legislative history guide for information on how these documents all work together as persuasive legal authority in determining the intent behind the law as well as clarifying significant additions or deletions as the bill moved through the legislature.

AB-2508 Bill Summary (via Legislative Counsel's Digest)

Existing law establishes the California Kids Investment and Development Savings (KIDS) Program, under the administration of the Scholarshare Investment Board (board), for purposes of expanding access to higher education through savings. Existing law, for the 2021–22 fiscal year, requires a KIDS Account to be established for all unduplicated pupils enrolled at a school district, public charter school, state special school, or other local educational agency, if one has not already been established for them, and requires the account to receive an enhanced deposit of $500. Existing law, for the 2021–22 fiscal year, requires an eligible pupil who is also a foster youth, as defined, to receive an additional enhanced deposit of $500.

Existing law, commencing with the 2022–23 fiscal year, requires a KIDS Account to be opened for all unduplicated pupils enrolled at a school district, public charter school, state special school, or other local educational agency when the pupil is enrolled in first grade, if an account has not already been established for them, and requires the account to receive an enhanced deposit of $500. Existing law, commencing with the 2022–23 fiscal year, requires an eligible first grade pupil who is also a foster youth, as defined, to receive an additional enhanced deposit of $500.

This bill, commencing with the 2025–26 fiscal year and subject to an appropriation by the Legislature, would (1) require a KIDS Account to be opened for a pupil who is a foster youth and is enrolled in any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, at a school district, public charter school, state special school, or other local educational agency, if an account has not already been established for them, and would require the account to receive a one-time enhanced deposit of $500, and (2) require an additional enhanced deposit of $500 for those foster youth who did not previously receive the above-described deposits for unduplicated pupils in the 2021–22 fiscal year and unduplicated pupils in the first grade commencing with the 2022–23 fiscal year, as provided. The bill would limit the one-time enhanced deposits provided by the bill to the KIDS Accounts of those foster youth that had not already received one of the above-described enhanced deposits for foster youth. The bill would make these new provisions relating to enhanced deposits for foster youth inoperative on January 1, 2029.