<p>It dawned on me today that the student health fee that colleges charge - which can be several hundred dollars per semester - could be paid for with money from a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) that a parent has. I see that in Bank of America’s benefits solutions (FSA) it lists “Student health fees (for medical services)” in its list of qualified health care expenses. Just curious if anyone has used their FSA to pay for their kids student health fees in college. This leads to my next question - for colleges that don’t accept having the student on a family’s health plan, and make the student purchase the college’s health insurance - could you also pay for that with pre-tax money set aside in an FSA?</p>
<p>Publication 502 explains what is an allowable expense for an FSA. It looks like you could do this, but I am not a tax expert & cannot say for sure that this is allowable. You can call the IRS help line to ask the question … I have called them quite a few times when reviewing tax returns for financial aid verifications, and I found them to be very helpful.</p>
<p>Remember that you can’t have an FSA if you have an HRA or an HSA.</p>