<p>Hi</p>
<p>I am a current sophomore receiving university financial aid. However, I will plan to save up a substantial amount of money, enough to meet the minimal requirements for a Vanguard 500 index fund or something similar. </p>
<p>What is the best way for me to do this without minimal effect on my financial aid? My parents do not invest and have little to no assets beyond their income. Should I open it personally or through them? What should I do? Any advice is greatly appreciated!</p>
<p>What are the minimal requirements for a Vanguard 500 index fund? </p>
<p>Knowing that any of your investments will be assessed at the rate of 20%, with no asset protection allowance, you'll need to calculate what the effect of your saving will be on your financial aid. Presumably your savings will come from income you're earning, so 50% of that income will also be considered available to be spent on college.</p>
<p>To answer your specific question, one approach would be to open a money market account with Vanguard and use it to park your cash while you're accumulating the minimum for the mutual fund; once you've saved enough to open an index fund, it's very easy to transfer cash into it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the great suggestion. Right now I only have about 1000 and thats in my regular debit card savings account. The minimum is 2500+. Once I have accumulated enough with your method, how should I proceed to purchase the mutual fund to ensure that the earnings will not be deducted from my financial aid? I am still 2-3years from graduation and I dont want my investment to be in vain. Thanks!!!</p>
<p>The only assets that are not "taxed" by financial aid are those in retirement accounts (e.g. 401k, IRA, 403b). If you have taxable income (reportable to the IRS) you can contribute up to the lesser of $4K (increased up to $5k in 2008 tax year IIRC) or your total income. </p>
<p>However IRAs do have hitches such as penalties for withdrawal before 59 1/2. However, I do believe with Roth IRAs, you can withdraw the principal (not earnings) 5 years after their inital deposit. Of course, the firm managing your IRA may add fees if your balance drops below a certain amount, so there may be other gotchas to be dealt with as well.</p>
<p>Mutual funds can be held within an IRA account, with the same general restrictions as other mutual fund account at most places.</p>
<p>If not being able to touch your earnings for a long time is OK, IRAs are not a bad thing to have.</p>
<p>However, I do think most young people like total liquidity as well, which unfortunately leaves the IRA out of the equation. I know of no other investment asset you can hold that is not subject to declaration in the FA paperwork.</p>
<p>How much will it affect my financial aid if I plan to have enough saved up for about $4000 in an index fund by next year? How much will will taxes be? I currently do not have a taxable source of income and will not file a tax return. My savings came from a summer private tutoring job and the rest will come as gifts from relatives and a summer travel abroad stipend which I plan to use sparingly and save up the balance.</p>
<p>Gifts from relatives wouldn't be taxed, but why not have them open an account in their own names and add money to it, with the promise to gift the account to you during your senior year of college? Especially if you can save the $2500 you need for the Vanguard Fund from other sources.</p>
<p>You didn't say what percent of your savings will come from income, but let's try this as an example:</p>
<ol>
<li> You work enough to make $3000. Since this is less than the student income protection allowance ($3080), you won't be assessed the usual 50% of this amount on it by FAFSA.</li>
<li> You save all of your $3000 in a money market fund. This is an asset which you'll need to declare for FAFSA, and 20% of it ($600) will be expected as your contribution to your college expenses. </li>
</ol>
<p>I know it seems like you have a disincentive to work and save money, but I think you're smart to start thinking about ways to save and invest. These habits will serve you well long after you graduate from college.</p>
<p>For this summer if I could get a pending research grant, I will have travel expenses covered in addition to an approximately 2000 stipend. How will this be taxed/considered by fafsa and the school? Should I still treat it as income? The rest will come also from selling off a lot of used personal items that I have at the moment on ebay, etc. The reason why I am asking is because my efc is relatively low and my parents and I have no assets of any sorts (I dont think a parents banking account with less than 10K counts as any significant asset) and I am just worried that my financial offers will get suspicious of my now supposedly richer self, especially since I am starting work, and tax away most of it. If that is the case, perhaps I should just spend the extra money I get on school related expenses by shifting some of the burden from my parents sides to mines so that overall we end up losing less money to the big percentage cut which they take off from student related income/assets. What do you think? I guess my question is, when is it advisable for me at this point to use the extra income for investment rather than just spend it all(also, I am not sure if I can reasonably spend thousands of dollars without being too wasteful), taking into account when the financial aid people will take huge chunk percentages off of it anyway?</p>
<p>I don't think that travel expenses or your $2000 stipend will be "taxed" by FAFSA because even if it were to be considered income, it would still be under the $3080 income protection allowance. I also don't think that selling your stuff on eBay is considered income either, but that's just my opinion, not that of a tax adviser.</p>
<p>Agrophobic</p>
<p>Go to FinAid</a>! Financial Aid, College Scholarships and Student Loans and run the FAFSA calculators with your current FAFSA information and with various assumptions about summer income and other investments. Try it with the 4K in your name and with the 4K in your parents' name. This will give you an idea of which is the better place to put the money vis a vis EFC.</p>
<p>As to the question about spending your earnings on school now, or trying to stash it away for the future, I'd personally advise that you use most of it to pay for school now.</p>