If students are unmarried minors (under age 18), the residence of the parent with whom they live is considered to be their residence. If they have a parent living, they cannot change their residence by their own act, by the appointment of a legal guardian, or by the relinquishment of their parent’s right of control. If students live with neither parent, their residence is that of the parent with whom they last lived. Unless they are minor aliens present in the U.S. under the terms of a nonimmigrant visa that precludes them from establishing a domicile in the U.S., students may establish their own residence when both their parents are deceased and a legal guardian has not been appointed. If they derive California residence from a parent, that parent must satisfy the one-year durational residence requirement.
Minor U.S. citizens or eligible aliens may be able to derive California resident status from a California resident parent, if they move to California to live with that parent before their 18th birthday. If they begin residing with their California parent after their 18th birthday, they are treated like any other adult student coming to California to establish residence.
Students may be entitled to resident status if they are minor U.S. citizens or eligible aliens whose parent(s) was a resident of California who left the state within one year of the residence determination date if they
Financial independence is not required in this case.
A minor or 18-year-old student may be entitled to resident classification if, immediately prior to enrolling in a postsecondary institution, they have been living with and been under the continuous direct care and control of an adult or adults other than a parent for a period of no less than two years. The adult or adults having control must have been residents of California during the one year immediately prior to the residence determination date. The classification continues until students have attained the age of 19 and have lived in the state the minimum time necessary to become a resident, so long as continuous full-time attendance is maintained at a public postsecondary institution.
If students are U.S. citizens or eligible aliens and are minors who can prove that they lived in California for the one entire year immediately before the residence determination date, that they have been self-supporting for that one year, and that they intend to make California their permanent home, they may be eligible for resident status.
