Also for the general thread audience: distributions from an estate directly to a child that are used to fund a 529 account would need to be added to an account owned by the child/estate legatee. As mentioned above, this is known as a student-owned or custodial 529 account. It is also known as a UTMA 529 account. The inherited money is the legal property of the legatee, and while the legatee is a minor and the funds are under the control of a custodian, the money can only be used for the benefit of the legatee. The inherited money cannot be placed into a “regular” 529 account owned by someone else (like a parent or grandparent) even if the child/legatee is named as the account beneficiary, because under 529 rules the account owner could then do whatever they wanted with the account money, including withdrawing it and spending it on themselves.