To direct your Florida Prepaid benefits to a private or out-of-state college, you complete a School Authorization — the process the Florida Prepaid Transfer Authorization Form supports — and for most families that’s done online at myfloridaprepaid.com in a few minutes.1Florida Prepaid College. How Can I Authorize My Student’s Prepaid Plan to Be Used at a Private or Out-of-State School? A paper form exists too, but it’s used only in a narrower situation: recipients of a Florida Prepaid College Foundation scholarship. If your student is attending a Florida public university or state college, you don’t need to do any of this. The school coordinates with Florida Prepaid automatically.
Submitting the Authorization Online
Either the account owner or the beneficiary can submit the request. Log in at myfloridaprepaid.com, go to the student’s Prepaid Plan page, and select “Use Plans.” Click “Authorize School,” confirm which Prepaid Plan you’re authorizing, select the school the student will attend, and choose the payment method that fits.1Florida Prepaid College. How Can I Authorize My Student’s Prepaid Plan to Be Used at a Private or Out-of-State School? Some school financial aid pages describe the same path with slightly different labels — Florida Tech, for example, sends students through “Plan Details” and then “See Usage” — but the destination is the same.2Florida Tech. Florida Prepaid
Once you submit, Florida Prepaid notifies the school, and the school invoices the Board directly for covered charges.3Florida Prepaid College Board. Plan Usage – Prepaid Plans You aren’t in the middle of that transaction. No check to write, no funds to move.
If the School Doesn’t Appear in the Portal
The list you’re choosing from is drawn from institutions that participate in Title IV federal student aid programs, identified by a federal school code assigned by the U.S. Department of Education. If your school isn’t showing up, confirm it holds Title IV eligibility and try the institution’s formal legal name rather than an abbreviation or common short form. The Department of Education publishes the Federal School Code List and updates it quarterly.4Federal Student Aid Partners. Federal School Code Lists
The Paper Form: Foundation Transfer Authorization
If the student’s benefits come from a Florida Prepaid College Foundation scholarship rather than a family-purchased plan, the online portal isn’t the path. Foundation recipients complete a paper Foundation Transfer Authorization Form.5Florida Prepaid College Foundation. Florida Prepaid Transfer Authorization Form
The form asks for:
- The name of the foundation, organization, or trust that holds the scholarship
- The plan number
- The beneficiary’s name
- The name of the educational institution
- The city and state where the school is located
- The signature of an authorized representative of the organization
Notarization is not required on this form. It can be returned by mail, email, or fax, and processing takes roughly four weeks.5Florida Prepaid College Foundation. Florida Prepaid Transfer Authorization Form
What Florida Prepaid Will Actually Pay
Families sometimes hesitate to authorize a private or out-of-state school because they assume the plan will pay less than it would at a Florida public university. It won’t. The Board pays the same per-credit-hour benefit no matter where the student enrolls.3Florida Prepaid College Board. Plan Usage – Prepaid Plans The exact dollar figure for each credit hour is set annually once Florida public university tuition and fees are finalized, which typically happens in late August.
What Florida Prepaid does not cover is the gap. If the private or out-of-state institution charges more per credit hour than the Board’s benefit amount, you pay the difference. At many private universities, that difference is meaningful, so it’s worth checking your plan’s benefit against the school’s per-credit-hour cost once the year’s rate is published.
When Notarization Is Required (and When It Isn’t)
A standard School Authorization does not require notarization. This is a common point of confusion. Under the Florida Prepaid Master Contract, notarization applies to a different category of transaction — the ones that permanently change or end the contract itself.6Florida Prepaid College Board. Florida Prepaid College Fund Master Contract
The Master Contract requires a “Notarized Request” (the account owner’s signature witnessed by a notary, with the original mailed to the Board) for:
- Changing the beneficiary to a different eligible student
- Changing the account owner
- Changing or removing designated survivors
- Voluntary cancellation of the contract
- Refund requests following involuntary termination, death, or disability
For contracts purchased on or after February 1, 2009 that include registration fee coverage, both the account owner and the survivor must provide notarized signatures for a cancellation.6Florida Prepaid College Board. Florida Prepaid College Fund Master Contract
If you do need a notary, bring valid government-issued photo identification. Florida law accepts a Florida driver license or ID card, a U.S. passport, a military ID, a foreign passport stamped by U.S. immigration authorities, or a driver license from another U.S. state, territory, Canada, or Mexico, provided it’s current or issued within the past five years and carries a serial or identifying number.7Florida Senate. Florida Code 117.05 – Use of Notary Commission; Unlawful Use; Notary Fee; Seal; Duties; Employer Liability; Name Change; Advertising; Photocopies; Penalties The Board requires originals; faxed or photocopied notarized signatures aren’t accepted. Each signer needs a separate acknowledgment even if the same notary witnesses both signatures.
Where to Send Paper Forms
Paper documents — a Foundation Transfer Authorization Form, a notarized cancellation, or anything else requiring an original signature — go to:
Florida Prepaid College Board
PO Box 31088
Tampa, FL 33631-30888Florida Prepaid College. Contact Us
The Board’s offices are in Tallahassee, but mail routes through Tampa. Use a tracked service for anything notarized. If an original goes missing in transit, you have to repeat the notarization.
Processing Times
An online School Authorization is quick. Florida Prepaid notifies the school and the school starts invoicing directly, without a lengthy waiting period. The Foundation’s paper form takes about four weeks.5Florida Prepaid College Foundation. Florida Prepaid Transfer Authorization Form Transactions that require notarized originals — cancellations, beneficiary changes, ownership transfers — take longer, because the Board verifies the original notarized signatures before processing.
You can check the status of your plan and see completed transactions by logging into your account at myfloridaprepaid.com. The transaction history shows the per-credit-hour amount applied and the date each disbursement was sent to the school.