Estate Planning for College Students: What Parents Need

What Happened

A Providence, Rhode Island law firm recently highlighted a critical but often overlooked gap in family estate planning: the legal disconnect that occurs when a child turns 18 and heads off to college. The firm published a detailed post explaining how federal privacy law strips parents of automatic access to their adult child's medical information, even when that child remains a dependent on the family's health insurance plan.

The article draws on a real client experience to illustrate the stakes. A parent whose college-aged child was hospitalized after a car accident could not even determine which hospital had admitted their child. Federal privacy protections under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known as HIPAA, prevented medical staff from sharing any information with the parent. The child was unconscious and unable to consent to disclosure. The parent was effectively locked out at the worst possible moment.

In response to this gap, the firm announced a summer package of three documents aimed at parents with college-aged children: a General Durable Power of Attorney, a Healthcare Power of Attorney, and a HIPAA Release. Together, these documents restore a parent's ability to act on behalf of an adult child during a financial or medical emergency. The package addresses a planning need that affects millions of families every fall as students leave home for the first time.

What It Means

The moment a child turns 18, the law treats them as a fully independent adult. That legal reality applies regardless of whether the parent pays tuition, covers health insurance, or claims the child as a tax dependent. Without specific signed documents in place, a parent has no automatic right to access medical records, speak with doctors, or make healthcare decisions for an incapacitated adult child. This is not a loophole or an oversight. It is the intended operation of federal privacy law, and it catches families off guard every year.

A Healthcare Power of Attorney designates a trusted person, typically a parent, to make medical decisions if the adult child cannot communicate. A HIPAA Release separately authorizes medical providers to share health information with named individuals. These two documents serve different functions and both matter. The power of attorney governs decision-making authority. The HIPAA Release governs information access. A family can have one without the other, which creates its own problems. A parent with decision-making authority but no HIPAA Release may still find providers reluctant to share the underlying medical details needed to make informed decisions.

The General Durable Power of Attorney extends this protection into financial and legal matters. If a college student is incapacitated, someone needs the authority to manage their bank accounts, communicate with their university, handle lease obligations, or deal with insurance claims. Without this document, a parent may need to pursue a court-supervised conservatorship to gain that authority, a process that takes time, costs money, and unfolds in public court records. A properly signed durable power of attorney avoids that process entirely. For families already thinking about broader estate planning, adding these documents for a college-aged child fits naturally into a comprehensive approach that covers every family member, not just the primary earner or homeowner.

It is also worth noting what these documents do not do. They do not transfer ownership of assets. They do not replace a will or a trust. A college student with meaningful assets, perhaps a custodial account that converted to their name at 18, or a life insurance policy, or cryptocurrency holdings, may also benefit from a simple will or a revocable trust. The distinction between a trust and a will matters here: a will directs asset distribution after death but goes through probate, while a trust transfers assets directly to named beneficiaries without court involvement. For a student with limited assets, a will may be sufficient. For a student with a funded investment account or digital assets, a trust offers cleaner administration.

Context from SimplyTrust

Estate planning is not a single document or a one-time event. It is a set of interconnected decisions that change as life changes. Sending a child to college represents exactly the kind of life transition that prompts families to revisit their own plans and recognize new gaps. Parents focused on their own wills and trusts sometimes overlook the fact that their newly adult children now need their own foundational documents. A major life change like leaving home is one of the clearest signals that documents need updating or creating.

SimplyTrust provides state-specific estate planning tools that help families address these needs without navigating complex legal processes alone. Whether the goal is establishing a power of attorney for a college student, creating a will for a young adult, or building a full estate plan for the parents themselves, the underlying need is the same: clear documentation that reflects who has authority to act and under what circumstances. Families who want to understand the full landscape of documents involved can start with the glossary of estate planning terms to build a working vocabulary before diving into specifics.

Source: Summer Special: Estate Planning for College | Moonan | Stratton