Do you know what percent of taxed assets are expected to be contributed by the student?
For example, my son had several thousand dollars in his savings account from his wages. He has been saving it to pay for college. I started moving it into a custodial Roth IRA because I thought that they might assess it for student contribution at a pretty steep percentage.
The principal can of course be withdrawn at any time as long as he doesn’t touch the gains. So it’s been a convenient place to keep it – also then he knows how much he has available to spend (what’s left in his bank account).
For us, every little bit counts for our income range.