Creates a new, temporary statutory section directing the joint legislative audit and review committee (JLARC) to conduct a systemic performance audit of fraud in the state's financial aid programs. The audit must, to the extent possible, determine the number of fictitious students enrolled, denied enrollment, or disenrolled at institutions that receive and distribute financial aid; trends in fraudulent enrollments; amounts of federal, state, and local aid provided to fictitious students and amounts recovered; systemic weaknesses that may be exploited to enroll fictitious students (including use of artificial intelligence); any unintended consequences to full-time equivalent calculations and funding to institutions; and other significant issues. The auditor must report findings and recommendations, including analysis of gaps in fraud prevention, evaluation of use of funds for cybersecurity related to enrollment and aid fraud, evaluation of current actions by participating institutions, and recommendations for statutory and regulatory changes to protect student financial aid, to the appropriate legislative committees by December 1, 2027. The new section expires July 1, 2028, and the audit is to be completed within existing resources. This is a procedural change establishing a new audit requirement rather than creating new crimes or changing penalties. The bill text does not provide RCW placement, formal definitions for key terms (for example, "fictitious students," "participating institutions," or which committees are the "appropriate committees"), details on methodology or resources beyond “within existing resources,” or any appropriation or follow-up implementation mechanism for the recommendations. Bill identifier S-3840.1 / Senate Bill 6082 was read first time January 13, 2026, and referred to the Senate Committee on Higher Education & Workforce Development.

If enacted, the bill directs JLARC to run a one-time, statewide audit (to be finished and reported by December 1, 2027) to measure how much fraud involving “fictitious students” is happening in institutions that receive and give out financial aid, estimate money lost and recovered, identify weaknesses (including possible use of AI), and assess institutions’ current fraud controls and cybersecurity funding. The most affected parties are JLARC, which must allocate staff and time to complete the audit within its existing budget, and public and private higher education institutions, which will likely need to cooperate by providing data and explaining their fraud-prevention efforts; the audit’s findings could lead lawmakers to change statutes or rules affecting financial aid and FTE funding. Because the audit must be done “within existing resources,” JLARC may need to shift priorities or delay other work to cover the effort, and no new money is provided to help institutions or the auditor. The text leaves key details unclear—there are no formal definitions of terms, no explicit list of which legislative committees will receive the report, and no specified follow-up or funding for any recommended changes—so the exact scope, burden on institutions, and timing of any policy responses remain uncertain.