529 accounts owned by students are assessed at the parent rate for FAFSA purposes. For Profile, that might not be the case.
@BelknapPoint is better at explaining this than I am…but there is no tax consequence in the year the gift was given…it’s a lifetime gift amount. The giver would need to complete a form if in excess of $15,000…but unless they gave gifts in excess of a HUGE amount over their lifetime, there would be no tax consequence.
How will this help? Unless the student spends the money on something else, it will still be an asset when he files the FAFSA a year later.
Someone upstream mentioned gifting the money to his parents. This would need to be done with NO strings attached…none. In other words, the parents could spend the money any way they wish, and no expectation it will be given back to the student after college graduation. In addition, the $100,000 would then become a parent asset anyway…which would be assessed the same way as a 529 owned student asset.
We had a relative die shortly before our first kid went to college. Our inheritance wasn’t huge, but the relative would have been more than happy to help fund college costs, which is what we did. We viewed it as found money…and were so grateful to have it to help with one of our biggest expenses…paying for college. I’m having trouble understanding why this student and family don’t want to use a portion of this money towards college expenses.