Any Financial Advisors here?

At a glance, you can only put $500 a year into an Educational IRA, which don't seem like much. I'd prefer it to be tax advantaged, but that's not as important as having control over how (or if) it's spent.

Basically, I'm willing to put money aside for tuition, lab fees and books, period. NO other expenses, if you want to live off campus, get a job.

Don't care WHAT sort of education we're talking about, traditional college, or trade school. NO on-line or distance learning, too easy to blow it off. Pick a subject and stick with it, or lose the money. One shot deal, you quit, you lose.

Time limited, use it under the above guidelines before the age of 25, or lose it.

(If you get the idea that I don't think my grandsons or their mother are capable of handling money intelligently, you'd be on the right track.)

Why did you borrow the money if you knew the wage wouldn't allow you to pay it back?

Also, some offer "bank accounts" in which you may put money into after the student is enrolled there, subject to restrictions on how it may be spent or applied by the student.

Not all offer these (my university doesn't, even though we've looked at ways that we might in the future), and if you don't know which college you might be dealing with, this may not help.

Howard

Too early to tell on the younger one. (He's 9)

Lastly, you have direct control over it. If your son or daughter turn out to be no good, you can skip them and give it to their kids, if they are no good, you can give it to their kids, etc. Also, if none of them are any good, you can use it for yourself for higher ed. The control is yours.

This is the way the Ed. IRA has been explained to me.

Hope this helps.

Jay

1. Not enough controls over how the money is spent. A "new computer for school" qualifies, so they go out and blow $3500 on a gaming megabox instead of the $1000 laptop they really need.

2. Too easy to duck the responsibility after the fact with a phoney-baloney "bankruptcy". My son did that, and I lost of lot of respect for him over that little dodge.