Senate Bill 5954 amends RCW 28B.15.621 to change how public higher education institutions may waive tuition and fees for certain veterans, national guard members, and their family members. The bill both creates permissive authority for governing boards to waive all or part of tuition and fees for eligible veterans or national guard members (including a permissive, non‑state‑funded waiver for Washington domiciliary veterans who did not serve on foreign soil or in international waters) and creates required waivers for certain family members of veterans or guard members who became totally disabled due to active federal service or who died as a result of active federal service, or who were POW/MIA as federally determined. The required waivers apply to a child and the spouse/domestic partner or surviving spouse/surviving domestic partner, subject to specified eligibility and conditions: child defined to include biological, adopted, or stepchild and generally age 17 to 26 or qualifying under 38 U.S.C. §3512; surviving spouse/domestic partner must be a Washington domiciliary and generally has a 10‑year window from specified dates to receive benefits, with remarriage or a new domestic partnership ending eligibility; continued participation is subject to satisfactory academic progress; graduate student waivers are encouraged but not required; total credits using the waiver are capped at 250 quarter credits or semester equivalent; a textbook/course materials stipend of $500 per academic year is included but only as provided by appropriation. Private vocational and private higher education institutions are encouraged, but not required, to offer consistent waivers, and governing boards must report implementation data to the legislature’s higher education committees on a recurring schedule. The bill includes defined terms (for example, “eligible veteran or national guard member,” “totally disabled,” and “Washington domiciliary”) and cites other statutes for definitions and limitations (RCW 28B.15.910, RCW 73.04.005, RCW 28B.15.013, and 38 U.S.C. §3512). Affected parties include governing boards of state and regional universities, The Evergreen State College, community and technical colleges, and encouraged private institutions. The extracted text does not state the effective date, and the reporting deadline shown (November 15, 2010) predates this bill and is unclear; the content and effects of the cited RCWs and federal law provisions are referenced but not included in the provided text.

If enacted, public college and university governing boards would be required to provide full tuition and fee waivers to children and spouses/partners of Washington domiciled veterans or guard members who died or became totally disabled from federal service, and permitted to waive tuition and fees for other eligible veterans under specified conditions. This will likely reduce tuition revenue at those institutions for covered students, create new administrative work to verify domicile, age, discharge status, and satisfactory academic progress, and obligate schools to include these waivers in regular reports to the Legislature; a $500 per year textbook stipend is authorized but only if the legislature appropriates money for it. The people most affected are eligible veterans and their families, who would gain access to free tuition and fees within credit and time limits, and higher education governing boards, which would need to implement the waivers, track usage, and report counts and financial impacts. Key implementation details are unclear from the text provided — for example the bill’s effective date, how referenced statutes limit or define eligibility, and why the required initial report date is listed as November 15, 2010 — so the actual timing, scope of benefits, and fiscal impact depend on those unresolved items and on whether the Legislature funds the textbook stipend.