Search the Community

I have a plan that excludes "full-time students", and then goes on to define "full-time students" as follows: an Employee is a full-time student for any period during which the Employee is enrolled as a full-time student or is between academic years/terms at an educational institution and there is reasonable assurance the Employees will be a full-time student the next academic year/term. The plan does not include a 410(a) failsafe for eligibility, so I assume someone thought this would be a reasonable business classification not based on service. I am just digging into this, and am trying to figure out what I need to know to evaluate this. Do I need to know if there are both full and part-time employees that fall into this classification? Seems that even classifications that end up excluding only part-time employees could still be legitimate business classification...for example, all the employees at location A are part-time and the plan excludes location A employees. Since the employer/plan sponsor wouldn't have any control over whether an employee is a full-time student, how can this be a legit business classification? What if a full-time student decided not to go back to school, when would they enter the plan? Can someone help me get my head around this one?