529 Plan, can someone explain this??

Paying for College
1

<p>In terms how it effects financial aid, what are the positives/negatives?</p>

<p>All i know is that a grandparent can give you up to 11k a yr as a tax free gift, or your grandparent could give you 55k up front but then that's it. My question would be if one grandparent dies and other outlives the other by lets say 10 years, if the surviving grandparent starts to give you 11k a yr would he have to stop in the 5th year totaling 55k or could they continue giving you 11k after the 5th year?</p>

<p>Is the purpose of the 55k upfront incase the other grandfather dies soon after, then much of the money would be taxed and this strategy would at least allievate this problem.</p>

<p>So when a grandparet gives the grandson 11k yr, does it count as the kids asset and thus will effect financial aid drastically or is this a special circumstance? Would you put the money in the kids name or parents. What would happen if you just put the 11k in a savings account in the name of the childs, would it be seperated from the other funds in the account when applying for FA???</p>

2

<p>Depends on the type of program:</p>

<p>College Savings Programs are considered an asset of the owner and therefore are simply included as an asset when the EFC calc is done. In this case, making the investment an asset of the parents makes sense since with most programs the owner and the beneficiary do not have to be the same person.</p>

<p>Tuition Prepayment Plans however are considered financial aid resources and have to come dollar for dollar off of your need. In this case, it doesn't matter (under current law) whose asset it is since 100% of what you use this year will come off your financial aid (not your EFC).</p>

<p>For a list of which program is which, see <a href="http://nasfaa.org/annualpubs/PS529Chart.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://nasfaa.org/annualpubs/PS529Chart.pdf&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p>

3

<p>Here's a site I found extremely helpful and reassuring.:
<a href="http://www.finaid.org/savings/loophole.phtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.finaid.org/savings/loophole.phtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>