Guardianship Account with Joint Control by the Court

Paying for College
1

Hi,
I am the joint administrator of a guardianship account for my daughter, the surrogates court is the other administrator. The funds are frozen until my D is 18 (next jan), at which point she gets the proceed. I’m filling out CSS and FAFSA and it looks like I don’t have to include the money at this point, the wording in the questions suggest active investments and accounts. Am I correct to assume that I don’t need to include it this year but she will next year? Thanks.

2

If she will be going to college next year , then you need to include the $$ that WILL be available to her for college expenses in 2019-2020.

3

@menloparkmom I’m not sure that is accurate…but I’m also not sure it’s inaccurate.

@kelsmom your thoughts?

4

I think even if it wasn’t available, you would still have to report it. I think it would behave like a trust fund. The only exceptions I can find are:

1)An involuntary trust established by a court or where the use of the trust has been restricted by court order, such as a trust fund to pay future medical expenses of an accident victim.
2)A trust whose ownership is being legally contested and for which access to the trust is frozen by the court. This most often happens in divorce cases.
3)Section 529 prepaid tuition plans.

http://www.finaid.org/savings/trustfunds.phtml

It is her asset, I don’t see how it should be reported any differently.

5

http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2080552-trust-co-administered-by-court.html#latest

Is there any reason to believe that the answers to this question would have changed since the first thread this poster wrote about this in May?

At that time…respondants indicated it would be reportable.

6

@thumper1 They did, but now I’m actually completing the forms and there seemed to be some degree of ambiguity around the timing for reporting it. The finaid.org “Net Present Value” calculator http://www.finaid.org/calculators/netpresentvalue.phtml clarified things, it is reportable.

7

I provided advice in that other thread, and OP isn’t saying anything new that changes my opinion. The balance in the trust/guardianship account needs to be reported on FAFSA and Profile as a student asset.