My daughter will be attending a Tech school close to home, but wants to move out of the house, into her own apartment. We know the regulations about using 529 funds when a college offers on campus housing, that you can use the equivalent $ for off campus housing, but we can’t find an answer about using money for off campus housing when the school does not offer housing. Anyone else had this situation and have an answer?
The community college near my home has no dorms, but the financial aid office provides estimates for off-campus housing expenses. Those numbers can be used to justify 529 withdrawals. Have you or your daughter already checked with her school’s financial aid office? If not, contact them and hopefully they can provide you with the relevant info.
Yes this is fine. We always include a print out of the cost of attendance estimates and an enrollment verification with the documents we sent to the accountant.
We have been doing this for several years and never had a problem.
My daughter lives at home and attends CC where there is no dorm or food plan. When I called the 529 people to ask about food, they agreed with me that it was unfair but said they had no way of “establishing” what the food equivalent would be. Or something. She has to eat whether at home or away and I was perfectly willing to save receipts. I also felt the system favored people who could afford to send their kids away and eat food cooked by employees of a school but kids who eat food they prepare or I prepare or Chipotle prepares didn’t merit being reimbursed.
Do people who have claimed 529 money for residences know if their schools provide some similar calculation for food? It’d be good to know exactly what to say before I ask this huge huge school which may or may not know what I am talking about.
Thanks
The school establishes a COA and in that is an allowance for meals or a meal plan. Most 529 plans allow you to use that figure or to keep receipts. You should be able to show what the allowance is in the COA for meals for students living with parents.
However, there are a lot of tax credits or benefits that unfair to one group. If you are a work at home parent who doesn’t put your child in day care, you don’t get the child care credit.
Thank you. I will look for their COA if any. Yes, I agree, life is unfair.
ETA: I just looked on the school’s site and found this helpful info. I never knew about this and when I called 529 they never told me, so thank you Posters for this help. It will help me out.