You’re thinking about how your assets can do the most good for your family. While estate planning is about getting everything in order, legally speaking, you know that it’s also a chance to help them plan for their future.
One option you may want to consider is making educational trusts for your heirs who still need to go to college. Depending on your own age, this could mean children or grandchildren. An educational trust protects the money from frivolous spending and sets it aside for direct educational costs.
Why does this matter? One clear reason is that you may worry about the way they’d choose to use that money if you just left it to them directly. A trust of any kind allows you to decide.
Another reason to think about is the student loan crisis. Recent reports from Forbes claim that American students owe $1.5 trillion, and there are 44 million people holding that collective debt. This is the highest that the student loan debt has ever been. The average debt for those who graduated in 2017 sits at a cool $28,650.
The reasons for the increasing debt are many. For one thing, many young people simply assume they’ll go to school and they don’t worry about the loans at the time. On top of that, tuition prices keep climbing, and they keep taking out more loans to cover the cost.
As you can see, students need financial help, and you may be able to use a trust to give it to them. Be sure you know exactly what legal steps to take when creating the trust so that the money gets used properly.
