The definitions in this section apply throughout this chapter unless the context clearly requires otherwise.

     (1) "Cost of attendance" means the cost associated with attending a particular institution of higher education as determined by the higher education coordinating board, including but not limited to tuition, fees, room, board, books, personal expenses, and transportation, plus the cost of reasonable additional expenses incurred by an eligible student and approved by a financial aid administrator at the student's school of attendance.

     (2) "Emancipated from foster care" means a person who was a dependent of the state in accordance with chapter 13.34 RCW and who was receiving foster care in the state of Washington when he or she reached his or her eighteenth birthday.

     (3) "Financial need" means the difference between a student's cost of attendance and the student's total family contribution as determined by the method prescribed by the United States department of education.

     (4) "Independent college or university" means a private, nonprofit institution of higher education, open to residents of the state, providing programs of education beyond the high school level leading to at least the baccalaureate degree, and accredited by the Northwest association of schools and colleges, and other institutions as may be developed that are approved by the higher education coordinating board as meeting equivalent standards as those institutions accredited under this section.

     (5) "Institution of higher education" means:

     (a) Any public university, college, community college, or technical college operated by the state of Washington or any political subdivision thereof; or

     (b) Any independent college or university in Washington; or

     (c) Any other university, college, school, or institute in the state of Washington offering instruction beyond the high school level that is a member institution of an accrediting association recognized by rule of the higher education coordinating board for the purposes of this section: PROVIDED, That any institution, branch, extension, or facility operating within the state of Washington that is affiliated with an institution operating in another state must be a separately accredited member institution of any such accrediting association, or a branch of a member institution of an accrediting association recognized by rule of the board for purposes of this section, that is eligible for federal student financial aid assistance and has operated as a nonprofit college or university delivering on-site classroom instruction for a minimum of twenty consecutive years within the state of Washington, and has an annual enrollment of at least seven hundred full-time equivalent students.

     (6) "Program" means the passport to college promise pilot program created in this chapter.

[2007 c 314 § 2.]