Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to the MEFA Podcast. My name is Jonathan Hughes.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And I’m Julie Shields-Rutyna.

Jonathan Hughes: Today on the show, we are going to be talking about everyone’s favorite topic, scholarships. This is another episode in our new and our ongoing series, highlighting scholarships for students of various ages, interests, and talents.

And to do that with us, here, once again, is MEFA’s own Lauren Danz. I figure we’ll do one of these every few months or so, and it’ll highlight scholarships that you can apply for right now. In fact, these scholarships specifically are scholarships with deadlines approaching in February. So if you’re listening to this episode after [00:01:00] February, sorry.

But the good news is, what’s the good news, Julie?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: The good news is that we’re always updating you with scholarships that have So we post every month on our blog and on our social media channels about various scholarships. So if you want to keep up to date on all of the opportunities that are going to be open to you, follow us.

Jonathan Hughes: And now that, you mentioned our social media channels, can we do a mailbag question before we get into the scholarships?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Absolutely!

Jonathan Hughes: Okay, so our mailbag questions, these are actual questions that come in from customers that we’ve received either through our social media, Or email or on the phone over the past weeks.

And so if you have any questions, remember you can reach out to us over the phone at 800-449-6332 or over email at [email protected] and over social media, whereas we said earlier, we’re always posting about scholarship [00:02:00] opportunities too. Our Facebook handle is @MEFAMa, our X is at @MEFATweets, and you can find us on Instagram at @MEFA_MA.

So just remember we have a bench of college guidance experts offering free assistance to you. And so I know it’s FAFSA season right now, but we’re going to do our next episode next week all about FAFSA questions and all the FAFSA questions that we’ve received. So I wanted to skip doing a FAFSA question today.

And this is a question that came into us from a customer named Melissa. She emailed us and she writes. Can a child have more than one 529 account in their own name? So is it okay if a parent and a grandparent sets up separate accounts? In the same child’s name. And does the money transfer over to the child when they turn 18?

Or does the grandparent need to hand over access when it’s needed? [00:03:00] One final question here. What happens if the grandparent passes away before the child turns 18? And how would that work? So there’s a lot of questions here within this one email, Julie. What do you have to say?

Julie Shields-Rutyna: I love this question. I love these many questions around 529 plans. Maybe because I love 529 plans as you do too, John.

Jonathan Hughes: I do.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: So first question, can a child have more than 1 529 account in their own name? A parent can have one for the student, for the child, and the grandparent can have one for the child? Yes. A student beneficiary can have multiple 529 accounts. I guess there’s one thing too, that I’ll say, but I don’t know how many people this applies to those accounts cannot total over $500,000. I don’t know how many people I’m going to run into that. So anyway, that’s a good thing that yes, a parent can have one and a grandparent and so can an aunt or an uncle [00:04:00] or a friend.

So that’s a great thing. And then what happens is whoever is the owner. So if the parent is the owner or the grandparent is the owner or an aunt is the owner that person is in control of that account. So that’s just good to know. That’s the person who will go into the account, request a withdrawal when they want to take some money out and help the child pay for college.

So that does raise a good question. What if the grandparent passes away before the child turns 18? So when you open a U Fund account there’s one question that asks you if, you’re the owner, do you want to name a successor owner? And that person has to be over 18 but that would be if you passed away, then that person could be the person controlling the account.

So let’s say in the case of a grandparent, they might choose their own child, the mother or father to be the [00:05:00] successor owner. So if they do pass away, then. It’s the parents who are controlling that account. And I didn’t get into that one nuance of the question. Does the money transfer over to the child when they turn 18?

No. So this is when you’re the owner of this account, you’re the owner. And that’s why it’s nice to sometimes have a successor owner. on the account just in case.

Jonathan Hughes: All right. Thanks, Julie. Once again, if you have any questions about planning, saving and paying for college or reaching financial goals, please reach out to us over email at [email protected]. You can also reach us over the phone once again at 1-800-449-MEFA, and I’ll throw our social media info at you again. It’s Facebook, @MEFAMa, at @MEFATweets, and Instagram at MEFA_MA. Now let’s welcome to the show, to Talk Scholarships, MEFA’s own Lauren Danz. Hi Lauren!

Lauren Danz: Hi! How are you [00:06:00] guys?

Jonathan Hughes: Good. How are you?

Lauren Danz: Good. Good to be back.

Jonathan Hughes: Yeah. And hopefully, I know you’ve been on the show talking about this before, but we’re going to have you on again and again to talk scholarships. I hope that’s all right.

Lauren Danz: Yes, of course. Anytime.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: So fun, Lauren. Okay, let’s talk scholarships. What have you got for us?

Lauren Danz: Yes! And before I get into this, I will just say that these scholarships are not actually offered by MEFA. They’re offered by outside groups and MEFA is just promoting them because we think they’re a great resource for students. So the first one we’re going to talk about is the Christopher’s High School Poster Contest.

Jonathan Hughes: Oh, okay. Who can apply for that?

Lauren Danz: This one is open to all high school

Jonathan Hughes: students. Okay, so any grade level In high school and I’m guessing, it’s called the high school poster contest. I’m going to use my deductive powers here and guessing [00:07:00] and guess that you make some kind of a poster here.

Lauren Danz: Yes. Yep. So the task is to create a poster interpreting the theme and this year’s theme is you can make a difference. So the awards range anywhere from 100 to 1000. And most importantly, the poster can be made in a bunch of different ways. It can be drawn. It

Julie Shields-Rutyna: So you don’t have to be a painter or a talented sketch artist to win. You could be great at graphic design. Is that right? Yes. Yup. And what is the deadline for that one?

Lauren Danz: For this one, the deadline is February 16th.

Jonathan Hughes: All right. Yeah. February 16th. So I, now just as an aside, I looked this up online and because I was curious well, I’ll get to that in a minute But just I looked it up online and the organization they actually post last year’s winners on the website So you can actually go and take a look and see which posters won last year and what [00:08:00] they looked like if you wanted to get a feel for you know Kind of what they’re looking for And I will just say, the one thing that struck me here is this is a national Sort of pool. So the winners come from all over the country. So I thought that was interesting. You can apply. You don’t have to be from anywhere in particular, but I have to say the reason that I looked this up, I was curious, it’s called, we were talking about the Christopher’s high school poster contest, and I was wondering who is Christopher. I wonder what the story is there. So I looked it up and Christopher is not a person. Christopher is an organization, the Christopher’s, which is a national. Christian organization founded in 1945. So I thought that was interesting. If anybody’s curious who Christopher is, it’s the Christophers.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: That’s great, John. So February 16th deadline for that. So we’ll put a link in the show notes.

Lauren Danz: Yeah. So the link to apply, it’s. It’s [00:09:00] christophers.org/highschoolpostercontest, all one word, no hyphens or anything.

Jonathan Hughes: Alright, so what’s next?

Lauren Danz: So next we have the Vegetarian Resource Group Scholarship.

Jonathan Hughes: So I assume this is for vegetarians.

Lauren Danz: Yes, yep, so this is for college bound high school seniors that maintain a vegetarian diet and lifestyle. So you need to write an essay detailing your successes and challenges with vegetarianism and how you promote vegetarianism in your community. I hope whoever wins this award is actually a vegetarian don’t apply to this if you’re not actually a vegetarian.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: I would say that’s good advice, Lauren. What is the amount of this scholarship?

Lauren Danz: This is the big one. The first place winner will receive $10,000 and then four runners up will each receive $5,000.

Jonathan Hughes: Yeah.

Julie Shields-Rutyna: And what’s the deadline for that one?

Lauren Danz: This one has a deadline of February 20th. And once again, the [00:10:00] winning essays from previous years are listed on the organization’s website. If you want to take a look at that and get some inspiration. And that link, it’s the vrg.org/student/scholar.

Jonathan Hughes: All right. And once again, we’ll include that link in the show notes. So what’s the last one that we’re going to talk about?

Lauren Danz: Yeah, so the last one we have, it’s a scholarship called Scholars Helping Collars.

And this is open to high school seniors the name will make sense when I tell you what you have to do to apply, write an essay detailing your volunteer efforts to help animals in need, and how that involvement has shaped your perception of the importance of animal welfare, and photos must be included with your essay, and the winner will receive $1,500.

So make sure to apply by February 26 for this one. Oh, and the link for this one, it’s petplay.com/scholarship.

Jonathan Hughes: Yeah. And I [00:11:00] did go searching on the website here, but unfortunately did not see any photos of dogs. That’s just what I was really looking for, but all right, Lauren, thank you so much. So we’ll see you back here in a few months then.

Lauren Danz: Yes, it sounds good. I can’t wait to come back

Jonathan Hughes: That was our show So remember folks if you liked what you heard today and you want to know more about planning saving and paying for college and career readiness then follow the show. You can find us wherever you get your podcast and please remember To review us because it does help us to keep doing what we are doing here and getting the show out to people like you so Julie. Thank you once again

Julie Shields-Rutyna: Oh, thank you, John.

I want to thank Shaun Connolly, our producer, and AJ Yee, and Lisa Rooney for their assistance in getting the show posted. Once again, my name is Jonathan Hughes, and this has been The [00:12:00] MEFA Podcast.