When your colleges student is your dependent, living away at school is considered to be a "temporary absence" from home, so your child is still a resident of your own home state--CO--and should file a CO tax return if she has taxable income. You do not mention how much she earned while at school in CA, so we cannot determine if she needs to file a return for CA, nor have you mentioned if any CA state tax was withheld from her paychecks. If she needs to file a CA return to seek a refund of tax withheld, it must be a NON-resident CA return. The non-resident return must be prepared before the resident state return.
**Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to offer the most correct information possible. The poster disclaims any legal responsibility for the accuracy of the information that is contained in this post.**
