Is there anyone out there who has a student at UF with both Bright futures(Medallion) and Florida prepaid? My kid is a Junior right now, but is set on UF. Although we have not filled out FAFSA yet, I have a feeling we will not qualify for additional funding. Can you give me an idea of what we will be paying annually for instate tuition with the above in place?
Sorry. I was wrong. It’s Academic Scholar BF. Pays $212/ch. Also, no Room and Board Florida prepaid. Thanks for any responses.
My understanding is that the BF pays the tuition amount at the public schools, and $212 /cr for private schools. You can make a choice to use the BF and save the prepaid for grad school. You’d pay R&B. Some of the older prepaid plans cover fees, some don’t, so you might have to pay those too.
If you decide to use both prepaid and BF, you’d get a refund for any overage, which should be about the amount of tuition ($7000) since both pay tha amountt. If you pay B&R with that, if it is prepaid money, it wouldn’t be taxed since a 529 plan could be used for r&b as a qualified expense. If it is the BF money, it would be taxable as a scholarship outside the QEE.
BF gives the schools a lot of say in how to use the BF money. My daughter’s school (private) only allowed it to be used for tuition. Most of the public schools allow it to be refunded to the student, used for study abroad, or just about anything else you want.
Florida College Prepaid will pay your tuition costs but you may have to pay an extra amount depending on when you purchased the pre-paid program. Full Bright Futures pays for 100% of tuition plus $300 per semester for books. If the student takes 15 hours at $212 plus the $300 for books, it is about $3480 which is deposited in your kids account each semester and can be used for anything. Average dorm room based on a double is about $2,600 per semester.
Just to add to @GatorDad305, when you purchased your Prepaid matters as some of the fees will be waived depending on your specific plan.
My student has the FAS BF and below is what that looked like in the fall when he took 12 hours. I guess the difference for your student would be that BF Paid tuition would be 159.53 per hour, not 212.71 and he would not get the 300. So the net out of pocket increase would be 938.16 in this 12 hour scenario. If your PP plan is different, that may also affect how much the Tuition & Fees are in your specific case.
Tuition & Fees - 2164.18 (includes Prepaid fee waiver & misc. course-specific fees totaling 141.70)
Room - 2648
Meal Plan - 1985
Books - 412
Total Cost = 7,209.18
Prepaid Paid - 1404.96
BF Paid Tuition - 2552.52
BF Stipend Paid - 300.00
Total PP + BF = 4257.48
Out of Pocket Balance Paid = 2951.70
Note: All 4-Year University and 2 + 2 Prepaid Plans purchased before 2007 are exempt from paying the Tuition Differential Fee. Currently that fee is $44.17 per credit hour (almost 21% of tuition).
Pre-paid is used first (unless you stop it), and will be used to pay tuition cost. Then BF will be paid to the University which will use it to cover all other cost, including any other tuition/fees, dorm (if living on campus) and other charges. After all charges are paid, what remains is deposited into your kids account.
We also have Pre-paid and BF. The first year, my son lived on campus with a meal plan. His Pre-paid and BF went toward those cost, and then we had to pay (up front) what wasn’t covered.
This year he lives off campus. His pre-paid (which was billed in December) paid for most of his tuition. Most of his BF (which didn’t pay out till late last week) paid whatever was left, and the bulk of it was deposited into his banking account. We’ll use those funds to help pay for room and board. There was a gap, between when school started, and before BF is paid, so you’ll need to plan on covering cost during that window.
Thank you all for your gracious responses. I truly feel so much better about this now. We did purchase the plan in 2004, so that’s a plus. I could just kick myself that I did not get a R&B plan, but oh well. Never thought we would still be in Florida. Surprise! Thanks again for all your time!
D’s school showed that amount as owing but did give a credit so we didn’t have to pay and weren’t charged a late fee. It did take several (like 5) weeks for BF to be paid to the school. If we were waiting for a refund, that also took a while (but at D’s school, the BF wasn’t refunded as the school required it to be used for tuition; they’d refund other grants or loan money even if the BF still wasn’t received).
@Gator88NE So what happens if the student has FPP purchased before 2007, BF FAS and the Benacquisto Scholarship? Btw the FPP is 4 year university and 2 year dorm.
@moscott Benacquisto replaces Bright Futures (they do not stack), but acts in the same way. FPP would pay out first (and being pre-2007 would allow you to avoid the Tuition Differential fee), then Benacquisto would pay. The surplus (which is MUCH larger with Benacquisto) gets deposited into the students bank account by the school.
For example, lets say you live on campus. FPP pays first, and the funds would go toward your dorm and tuition fees. Then (a few weeks later) Benacquisto would pay out (the school receives the funds). All other school cost would be paid (usually fee’s not covered by the FPP plan), and then the surplus is deposited into the student’s bank account by the school.
You can choose to not use FPP, but then you would have to pay that differential fee. Currently the Differential fee is $44.17 per credit hour.
@Gator88NE Fantastic thank you. So I assume outside scholarship funds would be deposited into the student’s account as well?
Also I read somewhere that the FPP and Benacquisto does not cover the summer B session so would BF pay for that before they kick in?
@moscott I don’t know if BF will pay the summer term, if you have the Benacquisto. It’s a good question for UF. Last summer was the first time BF could be used for summer classes.
FPP does pay for summer classes.
@Gator88NE FPP pays for summer classes but not dorm correct?
BF still pays for summer when you have Benacquisto.