<p>If someone if gifting money ( a couple thousand dollars) to a student for college, and it will be used for college expenses, is it wiser to put that money in the parent´s name?
If it is put in the student´s name, is it OK to move it to the parent´s name while the student is still in High school?</p>
<p>Does the same money affect a student´s total financial aid award differently if it is sitting in the student´s account vs sitting in the parent´s account? My understanding is that colleges will expect students to contribute a large percentage of what they have in savings, but I am not clear on how that ends up affecting the overall financial aid package.</p>
<p>For the FAFSA, money in the student’s accounts is assessed at 20%, and money in the parents’ accounts is assessed at 5.6%. This is why many people would recommend that sizable student accounts be listed with a parent as the first name (and first SSN) on the account.</p>
<p>Many people would consider it to be perfectly OK for a student to use his/her own money to help cover his/her expenses while in high school (reimbursing the parents when necessary), which can have the consequence of the parents being able to conserve more of their own funds for future college expenses.</p>
<p>The new FAFSA formula is available. Print it out, work through it, and see what the numbers look like for your family: <a href=“http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf[/url]”>http://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/091913EFCFormulaGuide1415.pdf</a></p>
<p>If your student has a clear list of target colleges/universities, you also can run the Net Price Calculator at each website to get a sense of what the various aid packages could be like. Please remember that most places don’t come anywhere near to meeting need, so which account the money is in right now may be entirely moot.</p>
<p>Have the gift be given to YOU…then it’s not counted as income and it’s a parent asset in savings.</p>