Quick question: generally, if the college need-based grant is more than the billed tuition, room and board, fees, etc (but less than the total COA), and would theoretically dip into costs for books or travel, how exactly does the school provide the funds? Does the student present their receipts to get the award money? Is the student mailed a check (doubtful)?
If there is a credit on the account after mandatory tuition and fees are paid, the student is simply issued a check. The school doesn’t question what the remaining money is used for.
Great! Very informative.
If that’s the case, you need to look into the taxability of your scholarships and grants. See chapter 1 of IRS Pub 970. The amount of scholarships and grants that exceed the qualified costs of tuition, required fees and required books and supplies is taxable income to the student. Note that room and board are not qualified expenses for this purpose.
@annoyingdad, I’ve seen that multiple times before, but I don’t quite get how to read it for the one particular situation/school that I am talking about.
Although these aren’t actual numbers, say the total COA is 65k, with the tuition and room&board adding up to 60k. my situation would be that the need-based aid all from the school is 62k-- the 2k would go towards books and travel. Would I be taxed on the 2k or the 60k? It would be great if you could explain and/or point me to a specific portion of section 970.
COA doesn’t matter. It’s tuition plus required fees plus required books and supplies. Add them up for the tax year and subtract that amount from scholarships and grants received in the tax year. The difference is taxable income to the student. COA includes room and board and other expenses that aren’t qualified expenses to subtract.
You should read all of chapter 1 of Pub 970. It may seem daunting but it’s only about 5 pages.
@annoyingdad Thank you! That makes a lot of sense. It feels weird that an institutional grant would be given, taxed, and then paid back to the institution, but I guess that’s just the strange financial aid/college process.
I’m not sure what you mean by ‘given, taxed, and then paid back to the institution’. There won’t be any withholding of taxes. The student gets the full amount of aid but then when filling out taxes in February-April of the following year will need to include the amount in income and figure out if a return is required to be filed and if tax is owed. It’s something to plan for should an amount be owed.
If it turns out that any of your grants are reportable for taxes in your situation, and if the amount results in tax owed, you pay the taxes to the IRS and/or the state tax agencies involved. It does not go back to the school. Your tuition, fees, books and required supplies are subtracted from the grants, and it’s only that excess that is considered for taxes. If you have not other income, it might come to little or nothing in that regard. My son’s friend is below the threshhold of paying each year though he gets money back. The loans don’t count, and the grant portion is mostly covered by qualified expenses and the excess is not enough to owe taxes.