Power of attorney before starting college

The 4 key legal paperwork parents need before sending their children go to college.

Healthcare Proxy
HIPAA Authorization
Power of Attorney
FERPA Permission

I’m a little confused because most parents recommended “MAMABEAR legal forms” online , while some say we can download them free from the STATE website or have them done by an advocate.
Just wondering what’s the difference

Do we obtain all the forms from the state website? Does the school send FERPA notices to parents and children, while health insurance provides HIPPA notices?
Please share the state’s ( CA) website from which we can get the forms.

Your child makes the FERPA decision. They also hold the HIPPA privilege. Your child can enable FERPA when they set up their account at school.

www.courts.ca.gov for the Advance
Health Care Directive. Just do Part One which is the POA. The Agent (you) are then empowered to make decisions if your child is incapacitated. Notarize.

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Free public service announcement- while you’re worrying about POA for a college student, take ten minutes and find out if your parents/in-laws have a properly executed POA and Advanced Care Directive. It is much more likely that a parent will experience a medical crisis over the next four years vs. your 18 year old kid.

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HIPAA and FERPA will be your kid’s decision to make.

We never got a POA until our kid was living outside of the US for 27 months. We needed it to manage any financial issues, and yes, we had them.

Health Care Proxy…we have this, but I’m not sure my 30 somethings have that even now.

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You don’t need any mamabear forms to do this stuff. You are next of kin, so if your child is in a medical situation where they can’t make their own decisions, you are the person who will be making the decisions for them anyway, without any special forms. If they’re not unconscious/incapacitated, they can decide to give you permission to be involved or not. But if it makes you AND YOUR KID feel better, you can do a healthcare proxy form without needing to pay anyone for it. My college student has chronic medical issues that we’re very involved with, and we don’t have any forms signed (because it’s not needed).

He signed the FERPA for the finances, but I specifically told him to not sign the FERPA for anything else (grades etc). There are varying opinions about this, but as college professors, my spouse and I feel strongly about (most) students having privacy and independence from parents, sharing only as much as they want. I know others feel differently and that’s fine.

In my opinion, the POA is total overkill, is invasive and controlling (though I’m sure that’s not your intent), and is only appropriate for very specific situations. One example is thumper’s where the kid wanted the parent to have it due to logistical constraints, and once I gave my realtor POA for 3 days to close on a house on my behalf.

I do have health care proxy and financial POA for my parents, but only under the condition of incapacitation. That’s how they set it up in their trust, and that’s been very convenient. Only because my dad is incapacitated and his next of kin (my mom) has found it overwhelming and confusing to deal with everything. Were my mom willing and able to deal with it herself the POA would be unnecessary.

For young, healthy people, giving POA to the parents is generally unnecessary (there are exceptions), and can be used by parents to exert inappropriate control over their adult child’s life. I’m sure that’s not what you’re trying to do, and are just trying to get any necessary bases covered to help out your child. But the some of the parents on the parent facebook page for my kid’s college are wildly overbearing and have done the full mamabear package including financial POA. Then the normal parents get all freaked out that they’ve somehow neglected to do something important by not doing the same thing – luckily that’s not the case.

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Mine did too…because WE were handling the finances.

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I will add…my kid was in the Peace Corps, and we needed the POA to handle her finances for the 27 months she was out of the country, and so we could deal with her income taxes. This was recommended by PC.

That POA was temporary and expedited when she returned here.

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Yep, like of course he wants us to deal with the bills and not worry about paying them on time :stuck_out_tongue:! Although I made sure to put his college funds in his bank account (which we’re on since it was opened when he was <18), so he is aware of how it works, and he sees what goes in and out of it. When he graduates, we’ll take our names off of it, or he’ll open a different one.

Yeah, I think temporary POA’s for convenience reasons (and by mutual agreement) are great! Sure saved my butt when I was closing on my house in very inconvenient circumstances.

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We kinda did the reverse. We got the birth certificate, social security card, passport, and a fire-proof lockbox, and gave it to the college bound kid as a “Here’s the proof that you exist. Don’t lose it, and take it if you have to evacuate for some reason.” Not quite a “here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” but definitely a “You’re a grownup now. We’re still here to help, but you’ll have to ask.”

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With both kids, I wanted them to focus on making the most of college. I did want to know if there were any problems. I asked both kids to sign send an affidavit that authorizes the school to talk to us (the parents) about grades, health issues, financial issues, and anything else the school deems pertinent. Neither had a problem with this.

ShawSon in particular, has a strategy of driving towards absolute excellence in a couple of areas and of ignoring other parts of life – some of which fell to his parents. In some ways, we were letting them take on adult functions gradually. We did not have either on a budget but neither spent excessively. I handled their taxes while they were in college.

I don’t think we had a POA with either, but all of their accounts were with our financial advisors and at the time I could see what was in each if I needed to. For each, there was one account (I think joint) that I could move money into and out of if needed. I held (and I think still hold) their SS cards and birth certificates.

Both kids have health care proxies. I think ShawSon may need to do a new one as he is now married. Thanks for the reminder.

The slower growing up does not seem to have hurt them. They have taken on all adult functions but know that they can’t count on us for a) advice on financial and other life matters; and b) for help if they need it. Amazingly, despite the slower growth trajectory, they are fully functioning adults who have terrific careers. ShawSon co-founded a venture-backed startup that is growing 30% a quarter and could create generational wealth. ShawD owns a two-family house and is both a responsible homeowner and landlord. Both are good people. Generally, I think the right approach depends on the kid (and the parents).

Where would we find a copy of these forms for the state of California?

Healthcare Proxy
HIPAA Authorization
Power of Attorney
FERPA Permission

We have the Advanced Healthcare Directive Form - https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/media/ProbateCodeAdvanceHealthCareDirectiveForm-fillable.pdf

Many thanks in advance.

I didn’t have those things.

Their bank accounts were tied to mine as they’d had them since they were babies. I really only looked at the balance to make sure they weren’t too low (they had checking and savings and it was easy to move money between them or from my account). For the schools, I had their passwords and just logged in as if I was the student. Again, mostly looked at their bills. I needed the bills when it was tax time to do their taxes, claim the AOTC, figure out the taxable part of the scholarships. Neither complained and it was easier to just pull it off the website than to ask my kids to get it for me. Also had to do the FAFSA back in the days when it was filed mid-semester and I just did it for both of them (with the bank balances and the tax info that I had pulled.)

If I were to do it again, I would have had those documents. I also would have made sure they knew how to use the medical insurance, the difference between an ER and Urgent Care, how to figure out if a doctor was ‘in network’, etc. One made the ER/Urgent care mistake -$18k for a UTI (thankfully, insurance covered once they got the right paperwork).

Putting in another plug for Mama Bear Legal Forms - www.mamabearlegalforms.com

SUPER easy - took us under an hour (notary was close by) and cheap for peace of mind. Docs by state…

The college will have something for your KID to decide to sign…or not…so you have access to college information. At both of our kids’ colleges, they could designate what they wanted us to have access to, and all we really wanted was billing. That was fine with the kids because they didn’t want to deal with billing issues, and yes there were some.

In our experience, this had to be done IF there was a health event of some sort. There wasn’t a blanket form. @parentologist might know.

You can get a POA online, and probably a healthcare proxy as well. If you don’t want to do it that way, contact your lawyer.

My doctor’s office recently gave me the health care forms. They do not need to be notarized or witnessed in my state and copies are okay. There were choices about what level I wanted to give, from I’d like CPR to pull the plug.

It’s very important to have POAs and health directives in place. I want to push back against comments above to the effect that these are unnecessary or overkill. When a child turns 18, our parental authority - to make medical decisions, to sign things for them, to manage financial accounts - ceases. The one effective way to be able to help our children (and yes it should be help) is to be named as agent under POAs and health directives.

Young people need this protection just like older people. We are all one accident or illness away from needing help. Also, POAs are a convenient tool to allow us to sign for people who aren’t present (like kids in college). My wife and I name each other, and it was convenient for me years ago not to have to travel hours each way to go to a house closing - she was able to sign for me.

The base documents to have are (1) Durable POA, (2) Health Care POA (or whatever it’s called in your state), and (3) HIPAA authorization (federal). Most college kids don’t need Wills as they likely have limited assets; the 3 recommended documents are more important.

Children are typically young and healthy, which lulls a lot of parents into a false sense of complacency. But if anything strikes where you need to act, then you will be glad you have good documents in place (and very lucky if you’re able to act without them). And as your children get older, get married, etc., they can change authority to their spouse or others.

I am a trusts-and-estates lawyer. My observation is that many DIY online services are terrible, sometimes worse than doing nothing. We handle these documents complimentary for our existing parent clients, and your own lawyers may do the same - but even if they charge a modest fee I think it’s worth it.

When our children turn 18, our parental authority SHOULD cease. And parents should want to only help their kids, but that’s sure not the reality in some families. There are plenty of parents who invade their children’s privacy or try to control them financially or otherwise. I’m concerned about normalizing adult children signing away their right to privacy from their parents.

I agree that POAs (to be active only in case of incapacity) and health directives are a great idea. The things that kick in only when the person is unable to make their own decisions are great. What I disagree with is parents having full financial and medical POA and HIPAA authorization over their adult children that have no unusual circumstances for needing it.

So does this mean that everyone should have someone named as full financial and healthcare POA with HIPAA authorization, right now, even while they’re young and capable of making their own decisions? Like there’s no clause that it’s only active in the case of incapacity? The estate lawyers I know don’t advise that, but I recognize that there could be a difference of opinion.

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Yes, I think everyone 18 or older should have those 3 documents in place, so that there is a plan in place and a proper “chain of command” for who would be in charge if help were needed. And I completely agree that parents need to let children live their own lives, make mistakes, etc. - these legal documents are simply tools for help as needed. I have had them for my 2 college sons since they turned 18, but haven’t needed to use them yet.

I sometimes see POAs contingent on incapacity (in my state the health directive by law is contingent on incapacity). To each his own, but I typically do NOT do it that way in POAs, for a few reasons:

  1. You may need someone to use it sooner as a tool of convenience, even though the signer is fine (e.g., my example about my wife doing a real estate closing in my name saving me a day of work and a 250 mile trip).
  2. Getting a medical determination of “incapacity” isn’t the easy thing a lot of people think it is. It can take a good while to get in to a doctor, and a good while for a doctor to write an opinion letter (and some resist that) - and all the while there could be a pressing need for the agent to act and not wait out such a determination.
  3. Having a POA contingent on incapacity implies that the signer doesn’t trust the agent to act now. If that’s the case, why on earth does the signer trust that person after incapacity (when the signer can’t change things) but not now (when the signer could amend it)? That doesn’t make sense to me.

I did this once for a closing. Just got a 3-day POA. Easy-peasy. We don’t feel it’s necessary for spouses to have it all the time, but I can see where some people are more comfortable with that.

Went through this with my dad recently, and it wasn’t difficult at all. But I understand that it can be in certain situations. They had good protections put into place in their trust with all the POAs etc spelled out in detail. Had my mom not been living and cogent, we would have had him sign full POA documents early in his disease while he was still lucid, for the sake of convenience. We did do that with some specific accounts of his. Dad just died, and we asked mom to meet with her doctor to discuss her medical wishes once again, and has just amended her trust with her attorney. We don’t have nor do we want full POA. Partly because then she won’t lift a finger and will make us do every dang thing for her – I do enough as it is.

Next of kin would be able to act anyway in this situation, correct?

Yeah, there are loads of kids that feel this way about their parents. Not exactly easy for an 18-year-old to push back against a parent shoving forms in their face. You see it pop up this time of year, every year on legal advice forums as kids are heading to college, wherein the advice is to not sign the forms.

I do think it’s kind of weird that every adult, no matter how young and healthy, should give these rights of privacy and finances to another adult. It’s ripe for misconduct and just rubs me the wrong way. Such arrangements must be mutually agreeable. I don’t think every brand new 18-year-old is in a great position to agree to such a thing with their parent(s). Some percentage will absolutely be coerced, especially if their parents are paying for college. The parents, of course, already have control over their own money, and the child is in a vulnerable position.

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No, unless applicable state law somehow gives automatic powers to “next of kin”. It doesn’t in my state, or in other states in my experience.

You make very good points about the vulnerability of young adults and parental overreach. I still think it’s wise for adults to give these powers to other adults - typically the powerholder is the spouse or a trusted adult child. And while there certainly are cases of abuse, stealing, etc., in most cases in my experience there is no misconduct - the planning works great for the family and avoids court proceedings.