So I found out last December I was accepted into a pretty selective school on an income/academic scholarship that covers nearly all of my expenses (95%, or about that). THEN, come May 2017, my father tells me that he’s just found out about a college fund my great-grandmother set up for me a long time ago (guess: 15 years ago). It has anywhere between 1000 and 3000 dollars, I’m not sure. Haven’t looked that far into it. My mother fears that if I use whatever is in it now, it could seem like the college fund was an asset unreported in the FAFSA (or whatever kind of financial aid/income docs we filled out 7 months ago), and that we lied to the college/scholarship program to be more qualified to get the financial aid (which, reminder, we did not lie about). Because of this fear, she suggests I use it for graduate school. But see, I could really use this money to fix my PC and get a Microsoft Surface or laptop. These are all very important devices for me to use in school (especially the Surface, as I intend on being an art major).
So what do I do? Just use the money? Ask my school about a hypothetical lost-then-found college fund? Wait four years?
If there’s any way I could convert the fund to income, that also works, as the scholarship/school don’t care about my family’s future income changes; the financial aid stays the same.
Is the account in your great grandmother’s name…or yours…or your parents?
Exactly. This most important piece of information is missing.
I think you should just call the financial aid dept and tell them you just found out about it since they haven’t actually paid out any financial aid yet.
They may or may not reduce the amount of your aid by the amount in the account but I doubt they’d take it all back. It’s not your fault you just found out about it
It’s not going to make much difference in your aid if it’s not in your name. If it is, is still not going to be huge. Find out the details and report it.
Don’t report it unless it’s in your name. If it’s not in your name, it’s just a gift from your great grandparents. If it is, then report it. They won’t penalize you for not reporting and it will barely change anything
Without knowing/disclosing who actually owns the bank account, calling a financial aid department to say that you “just found out about it” means nothing. If someone other than the student or a parent is the account owner, it won’t make a bit of difference for financial aid reporting until some of the money is given to the student or spent for the student’s benefit.
so if he doesn’t spend it and doesn’t mention it, it’s like it doesn’t exist? I’m wondering as my daughter is in a similar situation (great aunt left her a small sum-less than $3000) that she only found out about recently.
It depends on how it was ‘left’ to her. If it was from a will, she will report it as an asset if she has it on ‘FAFSA Day’.
It all depends on who is the legal owner of the money. If the student or a parent who is obligated to report financial information owns the money, it does exist for financial aid purposes. If it’s simply an account owned by someone else, it is never reported as an asset, even if the intention is to use it for the student’s benefit.
@BelknapPoint summed it up well in post 10.
We have NO WAY of answering this student’s question without knowing whose name the account is held in.
And…to the OP…this has NOTHING to do with whether you use the money or not…if it’s in your name or your parent name.
Lots of unanswered questions here.
If it’s in the parent name…parents also get an asset protection to a degree…and we have no idea whether this family has exceeded that amount…or not…for FAFSA purposes.
We also don’t know if the family qualified for simplified needs or auto $0 EFC on the fafsa.
We don’t know the college…so can’t even speculate on their aid policies.
But MOSTLY…whose name is on this account…that is THE question.
First of all, if you didn’t know about it, you didn’t lie on your FAFSA.
Second of all, it is only a few thousand bucks. College is like $70,000 for the top schools. $3,000 / 4 is less than a thousand difference per year.
Third of all, stop worrying. Even if it is in your name. Even if you just use it to buy a computer now, so turn liquid in to an asset. It was NOT an asset when you applied, because YOU didn’t know about it.
You have no reason to report it to the FA office because you filled out the form honestly. And it seriously is not worth their time or energy if it is $3,000 or less, and it is an inheritance or a gift.
You don’t even report inheritances on taxes! And if you didn’t get it as of the date you filled out the FAFSA, it wasn’t inherited yet!
Good luck and stop worrying 