One thing many seniors care about greatly is ensuring their grandchildren have a good future. So, this is among the goals that a person may have for their estate plan as they get older.
What happens with a grandchild when it comes to college, such as whether they are ultimately able to afford to go to college and how much debt they come out of college with, can have significant impacts on their future. So, one of the things a grandparent may look to when it comes to trying to support their grandchild’s future is helping with college expenses.
It has become increasingly common here in the U.S. for grandparents to provide financial help for their grandkids when it comes to higher education expenses. A recent survey points to how widespread providing help for grandchild college expenses has become among grandparents.
In the survey, done by Fidelity Investments, a group of grandparents was asked if they are or plan to be saving money to provide college-cost-related financial help. Over half of the surveyed grandparents answered affirmatively to this question. As a note, the polled individuals were investors with Fidelity Investments and skew towards the more affluent side.
Providing grandchildren with help with college expenses, both during one’s life and after one’s death, is among the things a person could direct parts of their estate plan towards. Now, there are numerous important things to consider when one is including such help in a will, trust or other estate planning device, including what impacts the method chosen for providing the help could have on the grandchild’s financial aid eligibility and what would help best ensure the financial help provided would actually be used for the purposes intended. So, when a person here in Massachusetts is looking to incorporate goals regarding helping the grandkids with college expenses into their estate plan, they may want the help and advice of a knowledgeable elder law attorney.
Source: The Bulletin, “More grandparents assisting in college costs,” John F. Wasik, June 3, 2016