Estate Planning and College Funds
With the price of a private college education continuing to rise, parents and grandparents need to consider those future costs into estate planning. Because tuition assistance is often based on the net worth of an applicant and his or her parents, the way in which you leave money for college is critical in both providing for college while protecting your family assets.
For example, if you want to ensure that you family summer goes to your adult child and young grandchild, you could leave the asset in both names. This ensures that you are avoiding any kind of problems as the home passes from your generation to the next two generations. However, when your grandchild applies to college, that family home is now part of his or her net worth and could easily impact the kind of tuition assistance available to you grandchild.
Fortunately, an estate planner can help you create a system of trusts and college funds to ensure that your grandchildren can easily go from college life to professional life without a mountain of debt. Meanwhile you can still protect your family assets so that you great-grandchildren can enjoy the benefits of your hard work and fruitful efforts.
The price of acquiring an undergraduate and Master’s degree from a private university can cost well over $250,000. And that price doesn’t include living expenses. Without proper planning, a significant percent of your assets could easily disappear before your grandchildren turn 22 year old.
