^^^Makes sense. Thanks again.
@SOS, FLoria prepaid is not state funded. It is like a 529 plan, and the purchaser chosen what plan to buy and how much to pay in. For example, you can buy 4 years of tuition at a univeristy, or 2+2, which is 2 AR a community college and 2 at a university.
If you cash in now and just get back what you put in, you’ll lose a lot of equity and interest that you’ve accumulated over the years. Why not wait the 3 more years until you know what college he wants to go to. He may very well want UF. He may be able to use the prepaid for grad school. He could do study abroad through a Florida school and use it for that tuition.
Many people have 529 accounts and their kids go to an Ivy or get a merit scholarship, and many have those FPP accounts too. That’s why there is an entire person at my daughter’s school to help parents figure out the best way to use it with merit scholarships, need based aid, outside scholarships. A guy I worked with has a son who got a full ride to UNC. He just decided to save the FPP in case son decided to transfer or wanted grad school. He’s the only child, so if son never needs it, he’ll cash it out after son graduates.
Many people buy FPP when their kids are born. They have no idea if the child will go to college at all, or if there will be erit money or a football scholarship. See it through to the end.
@twoinanddone Thanks for the info. Yes he has the 4 year university with 2 year dorm and local fees paid. I wasn’t planning on cashing in right now…like you said in 3 years when we know ,maybe…but I wanted to know the options for doing so or not.
You need to go through all your options with the people at FPP. They’ll tell you. There are a lot of Florida kids who get scholarships and also have FPP, so there is some juggling. Pell and Bright Futures can be given to the student in cash if FPP covers tuition. Other scholarships depends on the scholarship terms.
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Yes he has the 4 year university with 2 year dorm and local fees paid.
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Ok…more info.
That means that if your son were to accept a full tuition merit at a school like Alabama, you can use some/all of the prepaid to pay the rest of the costs. Again…nothing is subtracted from the merit. He’d still get the Full merit from the school. That would NOT be reduced no matter how much he has in his prepaid.
^^^Thanks very much. Understanding a little more now.
Also, if your son is fortunate enough to receive full ride, meaning that you really have no payments to the school (probably have some travel, books, etc.), FPP has a form you complete that provides reimbursement at the current value of in-state tuition. There’s a form on the FPP website for that purpose. If you submit that for reimbursement every semester, and assuming the reimbursement rate goes up every year, you will maximize your payout. It has gone up over the past few years.
@dadotwoboys excellent…thanks
Not sure if this Thread is still active, but I’ve had similar questions about the use of Florida Prepaid at out of state private colleges. While the FPP website you are eligible to utilize them, college websites are very vague about them and on some school tours, we asked specifically and Financial Aid staff were also unclear. On the CSS Profile, it asks you to declare the amount in your 529 savings account, but that is different than a Florida Prepaid… There is no “amount” per se, since the “value” of that is set each September. Your account amount is only what you initially paid into it, and for us, that was 16 years ago. We specifically asked one college office how to declare it and the guy said, just say you have it on that line, but the line would only let you enter a numerical amount. It’s very confusing.
And our question obviously is: does it come of the school’s contribution to Aid, or what our student’s Aid is, such as “EFC” loan or work study. Which gets deduced first, I wonder?
OOS your FPP is just a 529 account, with the only difference being that there is a guaranteed value of the cost of tuition at a Florida public, and that a Florida public will accept FPP as ‘paid in full’ for tuition no matter what the value of the account is and no matter what the tuition is when you attend school. If you used the FPP for a private or OOS school this year, the value for tuition was about $6500. No schools other than the Florida publics have agreed to accept that as full tuition, so you’d have to pay the difference. My daughter attends a private school in Florida and there is a person who deals just with FPP as many students have it. She knows how much to expect as the payment from FPP.
As to the value of the FPP for reporting it on FAFSA, there is a value to the FPP. Even students using it for a Florida public school have to report a value for it on the FAFSA as many of those Florida residents could also qualify for a Pell grant or state grants. You can call up FPP and they will give you your current value.