<p>Didn’t you say that a [ayout can be petitioned for education? So this trust is, actually, available to help pay for college, right?</p>
<p>Our son had some stocks and bonds (savings bonds and one gov. bond) from grandparents, which did not add up to a whole lot of money but which certainly elevated our EFC his first year. Otherwise, our income is quite low.</p>
<p>We cleaned out those assets paying for the first year, with some financial aid (about half the cost), and then our EFC was appropriate to our income.</p>
<p>If you have assets like these, often you have to spend them down in order to get the financial aid you would otherwise get, based on income. At least, that is our experience.</p>
<p>It was painful because we had hoped our son would have these assets to help him out later in life, but we also felt it was fair. Some people don’t have any unearned, or sometimes even earned, assets at all.</p>