Hello,
Now that the Florida Scholarship Program (BF) has been renewed for the 2018-2019 school year. Are there any Freshman parents from last year that can advise on their experience on using both BF and a FL Prepaid? Did any dispersed overflow money go toward housing or other expenses billed by the campus? Trying to figure out if I should withhold the PP money for future years, since both are for tuition only and BF is paying at 100%. Thanks
If you use the FPP, it will apply to tuition and fees. The BF money (in the amount of the tuition and fees) would apply to other costs like room and board, and if anything as left you’d get a refund. Many people have FPP with housing for the first year so are getting a good portion of that BF money back.
So it really doesn’t matter if they apply the BF money to room and board or if they refund it to you and you pay room and board. For a private school, it would probably be applied in the opposite order, with the FPP treated as 529 money and the BF treated as tuition. BF allows schools to determine how the BF money can be used (tuition only, study abroad, room and board, but the public schools all seem to allow BF to be used for anything or refunded, it’s just that the amount of BF is set by tuition now rather than $103/$77per credit.
If you get BF monies refunded to you, do you have to pay taxes on it?
It depends on what you use them for. For qualified educational expenses, no, but for other expenses, yes. However, I think it is permissible to ‘rearrange’ your funds. The schools are going to apply FPP first, as tuition, but that’s just because it is easier for them. Those are really 529 funds so could be used for room and board if the school applied BF to tuition then leave the rest for r&b. I’d flip them for taxes and claim the BF was for tuition and the FPP was used for r&b.
It may not matter next year when the standard deduction rises to $12k and the tuition is about $7k (not taxed). Unless there is a lot of earned income, the student should be under the standard deduction.
Depending on when you started your FPP account (LIKE PRIOR TO 2007) it is great that they apply FPPfirst because prior to 2007 your grandfathered in without having to pay the tuition differential and some other fee(saving about $40+/credit hour). But if I understand correctly BF will still provide the full $212/credit hour. Hope I have that right. If anyone knows more, let me know.
I also don’t plan on using the 1 year of housing I prepaid yet as he gets housing as a freshman, but will use it next year to get him housing preference as it is a hot commodity some years with there being a lottery.
His provost scholarship and bright futures should cover housing anyway.
Go Knights.
Hi Caugheyboymom, I saw your comment about being grandfathered in due to your FPP account being prior to 2007 and therefore not having to pay the tuition differential fee. We are also exempt from the fee for the same reason. I was curious about the amount BF will pay per credit hour in that situation. Did you ever get a confirmation that it is still the full $212 per credit hour or will they reduce the amount by the $44 per credit hour that we do not have to pay for the tuition differential. Thanks for any info you can provide 