<p>What are the best strategies to exclude or shelter savings from being included on line 88 of FAFSA. Retirement Plans? A savings bond in Grandparents name? Moving funds into an account in a younger siblings name?</p>
<p>A fixed tax deferred annuity always works, or gifting $12,000 per person/yr with the assurance the money will be gifted back!</p>
<p>If you have enough that you are worried about sheltering it from a formula that assesses parent savings at a relatively small percentage, I wonder exactly how much need based aid you will "need." Have you run your info through a financial aid calculator? The largest portion of the EFC comes from income.</p>
<p>Every time this question comes up it irks me. If you have savings that were intended for college, use them. We saved for our kids and we are spending that money now. Other people who were not as fortunate and were unable to save NEED financial aid.</p>
<p>It is not unethical to understand the formula and approach your situation tactically as you would a tax return. The majority of the formula is INCOME based so if you make $25,000 a year and have a ton of assets it might help to restructure, but if you make $100,000 and have assets in excess of the baseline, it won't make much difference.</p>
<p>That being said, if you have $20k in cash in excess of the protected assets AND you pay off a consumer debt or pay down home mortgage, that money would not be included as available for college, BUT you still may not agree with your EFC and might find yourself needing that cash to meet the EFC afterall. Don't put any money any place you cannot access it if you need it.</p>
<p>There are just not that many people who would be helped by shifting assets as their income is likely high enough to be expected to cover most of a state COA and for Profile it seems much more difficult to move assets around as they count home equity etc</p>